Crab used by Royal Marsden to test UK's most precise radiotherapy machine

A crab bought at Wimbledon farmers’ market has been used to successfully test the UK’s most precise radiotherapy machine.

The MR Linac machine has been installed at the Sutton health campus shared by the Royal Marsden hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research.

Prior to the first patients being treated in about six months, experts wanted to trial the capabilities of the machine, which is the first in the country to combine a MRI scanner with X-ray therapy.

This ensures radiotherapy is delivered as precisely as possible to tumours such as prostate, lung, cervical, bowel and breast cancers that move as the patient breathes or are barely visible to current technology.

It also prevents damage being caused by the powerful beams to non-cancerous areas.

Delivering radiation in “real time” also avoids the need to rely on scans that might have been taken a week or two earlier.

The crab, bought at the market at Wimbledon Park primary school, was missing a leg and had already been cooked when it was scanned. It was not irradiated during the test.

It was chosen because it is the zodiac sign for cancer, and because it features as part of the Marsden’s logo.

When MR Linac machines have been trialled in Texas a T-bone steak was used. In the Netherlands a tulip was scanned.

It has cost in excess of £10 million to install the machine in Sutton. Professor Paul Workman, ICR chief executive, said: “The MR Linac is our flagship project in a programme of research to apply state-of-the-art technology to create smarter, kinder forms of radiotherapy.”

Professor Uwe Oelfke, head of the department of physics at the ICR and Marsden, said: “By doing accurate patient imaging at the same time as delivery of radiotherapy — rather than as separate steps — we aim to significantly improve treatment for patients with hard-to-treat cancers including lung cancer.”