Radiation from K-shell filling in highly charged ions: a driver for resonant combination cancer therapy?

The possibility of using x-radiation from bare and hydrogen-like highly charged ions as a driver for a proposed form of cancer therapy is discussed. This proposed form of therapy, called resonant combination therapy, benefits from a very high contrast ratio between dose to the tumour and dose to the surrounding healthy tissue as is illustrated by some simple model calculations of isodose/ion distributions. The need for further radiobiological measurements and ion source developments in order to make this form of therapy feasible are highlighted