Medical Physics Dataset Article: a database of FLASH Murine In-Vivo Studies

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive, manually curated database of in-vivo FLASH murine experiments, aiming to enhance understanding of the FLASH effect by providing accessible, organized experimental data for research and analysis.

Contribution

The paper presents a new, publicly available database of FLASH in-vivo experiments, including detailed parameters and outcomes, to support research and meta-analysis in radiotherapy.

Findings

Database includes all reviewed papers up to March 2024.

Provides tools for searching, filtering, and analyzing experimental data.

Facilitates understanding of the variability and parameters influencing the FLASH effect.

Abstract

The FLASH effect refers to a lower normal tissue damage for an equivalent tumour response, potentially widening the therapeutic window for radiotherapy. Although this effect has been demonstrated in various experiments using different types of particles and irradiation parameters, the underlying mechanism is not yet clearly understood. Uncertainties surround the conducted experiments, the explored parameter space, and the variability of reported results. To gain a better overview, we created a dataset that includes in-vivo FLASH experiments. This dataset documents all machine and biological dosimetric parameters, and for determined endpoints, it includes the outcome of the experiment. Our goal is to increase awareness of the results and their variability and provide a useful research and analysis tool for the community. The database contains peer-reviewed papers published until March 2024 on the FLASH in-vivo (murine) experiments. From each paper, previously defined parameters have been manually extracted and/or recalculated to ensure compatibility within the database entries. We provide two types of datasets: a user-friendly web-based Notion database and spreadsheets on a Zenodo repository. The database contains all the reviewed papers with extracted information in text or numeric form. Users can duplicate the database or view, search, filter, and reorganise online entries. The spreadsheets contain the data for the most analysed endpoints, allowing a comparative analysis. The study has two main applications. The web-based database will allow for a user-friendly search of information and meta-data of all published FLASH murine data. This will facilitate future research efforts to better understand the FLASH effect. The spreadsheets are a simple and useful tool for the community to conduct statistical analysis and determine the parameters associated with the FLASH effect.