A Newcastle medical physicist has developed a method to reduce radiation exposure to the heart during breast cancer treatment.
Professor Joerg Lehmann, of the Calvary Mater hospital's radiation oncology department, has received an honour for his work.
It was selected for the National Health and Medical Research Council's "10 of the best" outstanding research projects for 2026.
Professor Lehmann's research, done through the University of Newcastle, was the first system to "continuously and directly measure the internal anatomy to guide breast cancer radiation treatment".
This measurement is done while the patient does a "deep inspiration breath-hold".
The technique requires breast-cancer patients to hold a deep breath for 20 to 30 seconds, while radiation is given.
The breath-hold expands the lungs, pushing the heart and other critical organs away from the radiation zone to prevent damage.
A key challenge in breast cancer treatment is minimising unintended radiation exposure to the heart.
Radiation therapy for breast cancer can unintentionally affect the heart and increase the risk of heart attacks.
Professor Lehmann sought to reduce this risk.
His team of researchers developed a method to directly monitor a patient's body while the radiation is occurring.
This enables clinicians to confirm that patients maintain the correct breath-hold position throughout treatment.
"The increased precision allows radiation to more accurately target breast tissue," Professor Lehmann said.
The approach supports shorter treatment courses of radiation.
The method involves clinicians watching a screen during radiation treatment to ensure "the anatomy is in the right position".
"It's watching body parts on the inside, like a movie but with X-rays," he said.
"We use the treatment beam, which delivers the radiation targeting the tumour area, to get the images."
A detector placed behind the patient enables this to occur.
"The image shows us in real time what is happening inside the body," Professor Lehmann said.
"We analyse that image with algorithms and compare the measurements we make in real time to expected measurements."
Those monitoring the breast radiation hope they don't see the heart.
"We only see where the radiation goes. We'll see a bit of lung and breast," Professor Lehmann said.
"We don't want to see the heart come into the field. If we see the heart, we know we're off.
"Then we would stop the treatment, look at whether it was set up incorrectly, or if the patient did not take enough breath."
Professor Lehmann has been approached by a start-up company to distribute the technology.
"If that works out that's good. It's probably best to distribute it through a company because that's the way software gets used," he said.
"People like having a company they can come back to for service and reliability upgrades."
His research team has further developed the algorithm for the technology.
"We have follow-up funding that allowed us to turn this from a research device into something that could be used in the clinic more easily," he said.
The research team used the technology in the Mater during clinical studies to "investigate how good it was".
"It could be used in the Mater down the track. It could be used anywhere," he said.
