On-line neutron beam monitoring of the Finnish BNCT facility

Abstract

A Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) facility has been built at the FiR 1 research reactor of VTT Chemical Technology in Espoo, Finland. The facility is currently undergoing dosimetry characterisation and neutron beam operation research for clinical trials. The healthy tissue tolerance study, which was carried out in the new facility during spring 1998, demonstrated the reliability and user-friendliness of the new on-line beam monitoring system designed and constructed for BNCT by VTT Chemical Technology. The epithermal neutron beam is monitored at a bismuth gamma shield after an aluminiumfluoride–aluminium moderator. The detectors are three pulse mode U 235-fission chambers for epithermal neutron fluence rate and one current mode ionisation chamber for gamma dose rate. By using different detector sensitivities the beam intensity can be measured over a wide range of reactor power levels (0.001–250 kW). The detector signals are monitored on-line with a virtual instrumentation (LabView) based PC-program, which records and displays the actual count rates and total counts of the detectors in the beam. Also reactor in-core power instrumentation and control rod positions can be monitored via another LabView application. The main purpose of the monitoring system is to provide a dosimetric link to the dose in a patient during the treatment, as the fission chamber count rates have been calibrated to the induced thermal neutron fluence rate and to the absorbed dose rate at reference conditions in a tissue substitute phantom.