BNCT research activities at the Granada group and the project NeMeSis: Neutrons for medicine and sciences, towards an accelerator-based facility for new BNCT therapies, medical isotope production and other scientific neutron applications

Porras, I.; Praena, J.; Saavedra, F. Arias de; Pedrosa-Rivera, María; Torres-Sánchez, P.; Sabariego, Manuel P.; Expósito‐Hernández, José; Elvira, J.M. Llamas; Ramírez-Navarro, A.; Rodrı́guez-Fernández, Antonio; Osorio-Ceballos, J.M.; Ruiz‐Ruiz, Carmen; Ruiz-Magaña, María José

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109247

Cited by 10 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Several accelerators were installed and actually used for clinical trials or are under development around the World (e.g. Refs2, 149, 150). These sources would expand the clinical BNCT services to more patients, and would conceivably help to make BNCT a standard treatment modality for various types of cancer (Ref 17…”

Section: Accelerator-based Bnct Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importance of radiobiological studies for the advancement of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT)

Hughes

2022

Expert Rev. Mol. Med.

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Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a tumour selective particle radiotherapy, based on the administration of boron carriers incorporated preferentially by tumour cells, followed by irradiation with a thermal or epithermal neutron beam. BNCT clinical results to date show therapeutic efficacy, associated with an improvement in patient quality of life and prolonged survival. Translational research in adequate experimental models is necessary to optimise BNCT for different pathologies. This review recapitulates some examples of BNCT radiobiological studies for different pathologies and clinical scenarios, strategies to optimise boron targeting, enhance BNCT therapeutic effect and minimise radiotoxicity. It also describes the radiobiological mechanisms induced by BNCT, and the importance of the detection of biomarkers to monitor and predict the therapeutic efficacy and toxicity of BNCT alone or combined with other strategies. Besides, there is a brief comment on the introduction of accelerator-based neutron sources in BNCT. These sources would expand the clinical BNCT services to more patients, and would help to make BNCT a standard treatment modality for various types of cancer. Radiobiological BNCT studies have been of utmost importance to make progress in BNCT, being essential to design novel, safe and effective clinical BNCT protocols.

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Section: Accelerator-based Bnct Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Importance of radiobiological studies for the advancement of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT)

Hughes

2022

Expert Rev. Mol. Med.

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“…A large energy range and complex interactions make reliable neutron radiation measurement difficult. There is considerable effort to validate and improve methods and tools that perform the measurements in order to provide results with lower associated uncertainty [1,2,3,4]. The main objective of calibrating neutron detectors is to ensure that measurements are accurate with known uncertainties, taking into account the requirements established by regulatory authorities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of scattered radiation influence on neutron beams at a calibration laboratory using Monte Carlo simulation of a long counter

Sarmento Alvarenga,

Fernandes,

Pereira

et al. 2023

Braz. J. Rad. Sci.

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At the Neutron Calibration Laboratory (LCN) of IPEN/CNEN, a 241AmBe source was used to test and calibrate neutron detectors. The neutrons emitted by the source reach the detector as intended, but they also scatter undesirably from the building's floor, ceiling, and walls, leading to indirect detection. A Long Counter (LC) detector was modeled using the MCNPX Monte Carlo code. The objective of this study was to measure the contribution of scattered radiation at the LCN / IPEN, and to determine the fluence rate, at different points in the calibration room at source-to-detector distances of 100 cm and 150 cm; subsequently, the results were compared with those of the Brazilian Laboratory of Metrology of Ionizing Radiation (LNMRI). The results show that the fluence rates of LCN / IPEN are comparable to those of this neutron laboratory for the 100 and 150 cm source-to-detector distances using a 241AmBe source (37 GBq). The results show that the calibration of neutron detectors should be performed at distances less than 100 cm, where the contribution of scattered radiation is within the 40% limit recommended by ISO 8529-1.

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Advances of LINAC-based boron neutron capture therapy in Korea

Bae¹,

Kim²,

Seo³

et al. 2022

AAPPS Bull.

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Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) has been attracting interest as a new radiation modality for cancer therapy because it can selectively destroy cancer cells while maintaining the healthy state of surrounding normal cells. Many experimental trials have demonstrated significant BNCT treatment efficacy using neutron beams from research reactors. However, nuclear reactor technology cannot be scaled to sites in hospitals delivering patient treatment. Therefore, compact accelerator-based neutron sources that could be installed in many hospitals are under development or have even been commissioned at many facilities around the world. In Korea, a radio-frequency (RF) linac-based BNCT (A-BNCT) facility is under development by DawonMedax (DM). It provides the highly efficient production of an epithermal neutron beam with an optimized neutron energy spectrum range of 0.1~10 keV. With a 2-mA 10-MeV proton beam from the accelerator, the irradiation port epithermal neutron flux is higher than 1 × 109 n/cm2⋅s. Comprehensive verification and validation of the system have been conducted with the measurement of both proton and neutron beam characteristics. Significant therapeutic effects from BNCT have been confirmed by DM in both in vitro and in vivo non-clinical trials. Further, during exposure to epithermal neutrons, all other unintended radiation is controlled to levels meeting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recommendations. Recently, the Korean FDA has accepted an investigational new drug (IND) and the first-in-human clinical trial of BNCT is now being prepared. This paper introduces the principles of BNCT and accelerator-based neutron sources for BNCT and reports the recent advances of DM A-BNCT facility which is the main part of this paper.

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BNCT research activities at the Granada group and the project NeMeSis: Neutrons for medicine and sciences, towards an accelerator-based facility for new BNCT therapies, medical isotope production and other scientific neutron applications

Cited by 10 publications

References 14 publications

Importance of radiobiological studies for the advancement of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT)

Importance of radiobiological studies for the advancement of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT)

Estimation of scattered radiation influence on neutron beams at a calibration laboratory using Monte Carlo simulation of a long counter

Advances of LINAC-based boron neutron capture therapy in Korea

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