Studies on depth-dose-distribution controls by deuteration and void formation in boron neutron capture therapy

Abstract

Physical studies on (i) replacement of heavy water for body water (deuteration), and (ii) formation of a void in human body (void formation) were performed as control techniques for dose distribution in a human head under neutron capture therapy. Simulation calculations were performed for a human-head-size cylindrical phantom using a two-dimensional transport calculation code for mono-energetic incidences of higher-energy epi-thermal neutrons (1.2–10 keV), lower-energy epi-thermal neutrons (3.1–23 eV) and thermal neutrons (1 meV to 0.5 eV). The deuteration was confirmed to be effective both in thermal neutron incidence and in epi-thermal neutron incidence from the viewpoints of improvement of the thermal neutron flux distribution and elimination of the secondary gamma rays. For the void formation, a void was assumed to be 4 cm in diameter and 3 cm in depth at the surface part in this study. It was confirmed that the treatable depth was improved almost 2 cm for any incident neutron energy in the case of the 10 cm irradiation field diameter. It was made clear that the improvement effect was larger in isotropic incidence than in parallel incidence, in the case that an irradiation field size was delimited fitting into a void diameter.