How can computer software technology prolong life?
About 1,400,000 people per year in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer in the form of solid tumors, and about half of these are treated with radiation. The chance that you will get cancer in your lifetime is about 50%. Almost all (about 95%) of radiation treatments involve electrons or gamma-rays. Of those who are treated by radiation, about 25%, that's about 175,000 people, do not survive because the radiation is not delivered as effectively as it could be because we are working at the very limit of the technology. The Monte Carlo method implemented in EGS4 is widely accepted as the most accurate method for doing calculations involving electrons and gamma-rays. Research is being done NOW to use EGS4 in hospitals, to make the delivery of radiotherapy cancer treatments more effective. Even if EGS4 improves the cancer therapy by only 1%, that's almost 2,000 people saved! And, it might be you or a close relative of yours that is saved!
If you are treated by radiation therapy after the year 2000 or so, it will be a virtual certainty that EGS4 calculations were somehow involved.