Fish swimming in the North Sea after the Chernobyl disaster and a cancer treatment lab in a Sydney hospital may seem worlds apart, but a phenomenon of physics has now bound them together.

Key points: Australian physicists use radiation "stripes" to target cancer cells

Australian physicists use radiation "stripes" to target cancer cells "Bystander effect" means tumours hit with radiation release molecules which then go on to attack neighbouring cancer cells

"Bystander effect" means tumours hit with radiation release molecules which then go on to attack neighbouring cancer cells For patients, it means treatment would have the same effect but they would receive half the dose of radiation

It's called the bystander effect and involves healthy cells dying when organisms nearby are hit with a beam of radiation.

In the Chernobyl fish, scientists discovered that North Sea shoals which had been exposed to a radiation cloud spreading over Europe after the nuclear meltdown could transfer the effects of this radiation to unexposed cells grown in a lab environment.

It's this principle two physicists working at the University of Sydney and Chris O'Brien Lifehouse have employed to develop a technique that could enhance traditional radiation therapy by at least 30 per cent.

As Professor David McKenzie explained, they used it to radiate dishes of affected skin, lung, breast and prostate cells and successfully killed the cancers. They are now even looking at mesothelioma cells.

Equally importantly, they were able to keep nearby healthy cells largely intact, the University of Sydney physicist said.

"What we've found is that if the beams are coming in as stripes, the circulation system is much less affected and so the normal tissue can retain some circulation and recover better," Professor McKenzie said.

The Australian scientists' work modelling modulated radiation therapy has been published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

While it is still in the theoretical stages, it involves shooting a traditional radiation beam through a device called a fine collimator which splits the beam into a series of stripes.

Those organisms under attack release molecules, such as cytokines, which then attack neighbouring cancer cells that have not been hit with radiation.

"Cancer cells are not very intelligent and if we do something to change their environment, they'll respond in a different way to normal cells, and in one case what we've found is they can die more easily," Professor McKenzie said.

"The physics behind it is to look at how the molecules emitted by cells that are struck by radiation are transferred to nearby cells.

"We've managed to model the motion of these molecules mathematically and been able to predict the effect."

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Same effect for half the dose

The team's work has an added potential for patients who have treatment-resistant cancers, Associate Professor Natalka Suchowerska from Chris O'Brien Lifehouse explains.

"What we could do is give the same dose and have a significantly higher killing effect and so therefore have a much better treatment for the patient," she said.

She is modest about the gains, which have shown between a 30 and 50 per cent improvement in cancer outcomes after radiation treatment, but she notes if comparable research showed even a 5 per cent improvement with chemotherapy, that would likely "make headlines".

"This is really significant news," Associate Professor Suchowerska said.

"This is really early data however. The next stage will be animal studies and then onto controlled patient clinical trials."

If the theory proves effective in humans in the long run, a key development from their work is that the technique will be able to be replicated in a standard radiation treatment centre.

Previously this type of beam could only be created using a circular particle accelerator called a synchrotron. There is only one of these machines in the entire country. It is in Melbourne and not designed to treat patients.

"We can deliver this type of treatment using linear accelerators in every radiation oncology department in Australia," Associate Professor Suchowerska said.

Comedian David Smiedt had radiation treatment for throat cancer at Chris O'Brien Lifehouse. ( ABC News: Alison Branley )

Associate Professor Dion Forstner from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists said most developments in the world of radiation therapy related to better ways to shoot the beam more accurately.

"This is really very much about the beam itself and breaking the beam up, so it's complementary to other great advances we've seen over time," he said.

"This is an exciting and incremental development, very much in the pre-clinical situation. We would hope that in the future it can translate into the clinical environment.

"We would expect to see that there was less in the way of side effects for patients from treatment and hopefully improved control of their cancer."

Cancer can be funny, but not radiation: patient

David Smiedt shows off a burn-like mark left by traditional radiation treatment ( Supplied )

For comedian David Smiedt, there were sometimes funny sides to his cancer treatment.

"The nurses get you through the tough parts and the sad parts and they were always happy to share a joke with me," he said.

"As I was preparing for my general anaesthetic to go into surgery, one of the nurses leaned forward and very softly said 'this is the drug that killed Prince'."

But he said radiation treatment on his neck for tonsil and throat cancer left him feeling severe fatigue and left a burn-like mark on his neck.

"The last two weeks after the end of the therapy was when it really piled up," Mr Smiedt said.

"Anything that would shorten the duration or make efficacy rise somewhat is more than valuable and welcomed in my book, and I'd sign up for a trial tomorrow if I was back in in the initial position."

Mr Smiedt is now on his way to being cancer free and has turned his experiences into a comedy show called Finding Chemo.