Review of Reactor-Based Neutron Beam Development for Bnct Applications

Abstract

The revival over the last decade of BNCT as a potentially successful form of radiotherapy, especially for the treatment of otherwise untreatable, deep-seated tumours such as glioma, has led to a variety of neutron beam designs becoming available and being proposed at a number of nuclear research centres throughout the world. Present designs focus on producing beams of predominately epithermal neutrons which can penetrate healthy tissue to give the tumour at depth lethal doses whilst leaving the healthy tissue relatively unscathed. As well as the established design route using nuclear research reactors1,2,3,4, recent work is also looking at accelerators (see Yanch, Shefer, these proceedings) and radioisotope sources (see Kim, these proceedings). Despite this proliferation of designs for epithermal neutron beams, BNCT is performed currently, albeit in Japan only, using thermal neutron beams5,6. Epithermal neutron beams have therefore, as yet, still not been used for the treatment of patients.