Boron Neutron Capture Therapy of Malignant Brain Tumors at the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor

Abstract

Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a bimodal form of radiation therapy for cancer. The first component of this treatment is the preferential localization of the stable isotope 10B in tumor cells by targeting with boronated compounds. The tumor and surrounding tissue is then irradiated with a neutron beam resulting in thermal neutron/10B reactions (10B(n, α)7Li) resulting in the production of localized high LET radiation from alpha and 7Li particles. These products of the neutron capture reaction are very damaging to cells, but of short range (each less than 10μm) so that the majority of the ionizing energy released is microscopically confined to the vicinity of the boron-containing compound. In principal it should be possible with BNCT to selectively destroy small nests or even single cancer cells located within normal tissue. It follows that the major improvements in this form of radiation therapy are going to come largely from the development of boron compounds with greater tumor selectivity, although there will certainly be advances made in neutron beam quality as well as the possible development of alternative sources of neutron beams, particularly accelerator—based epithermal neutron beams.KeywordsGlioblastoma MultiformeNeutron BeamBoronic AcidMalignant Brain TumorBoron Neutron Capture TherapyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.