Using speed of video game processors to improve cancer patient care

Date:

May 2, 2014

Source:

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Summary:

The speed of video game processors are being used to promote research that is aimed at improving patient care, a new study says. In recent years, video game processors, known as graphic processing units, or GPUs, have become massively powerful as game makers support increasingly elaborate video graphics with rapid-fire processing. Now medical researchers are looking to these GPUs for inspiration. One practical application is reducing the time required to calculate the radiation dose delivered to a tumor during proton radiotherapy, for example. The faster video processors can reduce the time of the most complex calculation method from 70 hours to just 10 seconds.