The physics, dosimetry and microdosimetry of boron neutron capture theraphy

[摘要] A validatedexperimental andnumerical procedure isdescribeddetailing macroscopic and microscopicdose calculationsforming thebasis of aprotocol for the pre-clinicalbiological characterisation of the University of Birmingham’s BNCT facility. Fundamental referencedosimetricmeasurements havebeencarried out at theUniversity of Birmingham’s accelerator based NCT facility and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchreactor to characterise macroscopic andmicroscopicdoses andderive correction factors for the irradiation of V79 cells incubated inboricacid andirradiated as monolayers.Onand off-axis thermalneutron, fast neutronandphoton doses havebeen measuredandcalculated with standardmacroscopicdosimetry techniques (foilsand ion chambers) from which normalised MCNPX calculations are usedto deriveperturbation factors and off-axis corrections for cell flask irradiations. Microdosimetric correction factors are calculated for the boron dose component using Monte Carlo methods to simulate lithium ion and alpha particle tracks in semi-stochastic geometries representative of cell monolayer irradiations, incubated in a medium with 50ppm boric acid. Further simulations of recoil protons from nitrogen capture reactions allow for the calculation of correction factors for the non-uniform distribution of the nitrogen dose at the cellular level.

[发布机构] University:University of Birmingham;Department:School of Physics and Astronomy

[关键词] Q Science;QC Physics