SERA: Simulation Environment for Radiotherapy Applications - Users Manual Version 1CO

Abstract

This document is the user manual for the Simulation Environment for Radiotherapy Applications (SERA) software program developed for boron-neutron capture therapy (BNCT) patient treatment planning by researchers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) and students and faculty at Montana State University (MSU) Computer Science Department. This manual corresponds to the final release of the program, Version 1C0, developed to run under the RedHat Linux Operating System (version 7.2 or newer) or the Solaris™ Operating System (version 2.6 or newer). SERA is a suite of command line or interactively launched software modules, including graphical, geometric reconstruction, and execution interface modules for developing BNCT treatment plans. The program allows the user to develop geometric models of the patient as derived from Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images, perform dose computation for these geometric models, and display the computed doses on overlays of the original images as three dimensional representations. This manual provides a guide to the practical use of SERA, but is not an exhaustive treatment of each feature of the code. iv IN MEMORIAMFloyd J. Wheeler passed away before the final version of the software and manual were completed. Floyd was a leader and innovator in the development of computational methods for neutron transport in tissue, a widely respected member of the international Neutron Capture Therapy community, a great teacher and mentor, a dedicated and loving father, and one of the most decent, forthright, and helpful people anyone could hope to meet. His absence impoverishes us all. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAs with many large endeavors such as this, there is a supporting cast of thousands lurking behind the scenes who are not only unrewarded but, worse, unrecognized. In many of these cases, these same people may and do make contributions more significant than do the authors appearing on that work. This effort is no exception. With regard to this effort, there is one such person that stands above all others, authors included, and that person is Merle Griebenow. Merle instituted the boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) program at Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), and perhaps revived it in many other quarters. Merle, like Professor Hatanaka before him, was regarded as a heretic by many of his peers, except by those who really know him. We might say that being regarded as a heretic is perhaps really an honor, since, from the historic perspective, it's probably heresy, not necessity, that is the mother of invention.Merle has an incredible capacity to observe and learn and then trust and support the people he recruits. For that, we are most grateful.

Final Report for the ?WSU Neutron Capture Therapy Facility Support?

“…The resulting epithermal beam of 1 x 10 9 n/sec-cm 2 was measured by Idaho National Laboratory with assistance from WSU's Neutron Activation Analysis Group. The beam is as good as our initial proposals for the project had predicted (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9) .…”

Fluorinated borono‐phenylalanine for optimizing BNCT: Enhancing boron absorption against hydrogen scattering for thermal neutrons

“…It is worth noting, as one can appreciate in a recent review article (Ref. [5]), that doses related to 18 F-BPA and 19 F-BPA can be quite different, as the former is mainly used in smaller quantities as a tracer in PET, while the latter should be administrated in similar quantities as BPA. However, the two fluorinated variants of BPA are expected to show the same chemical behaviour and, as shown by Watanabe et al, 35 no differences were found between BPA and 19 F-BPA in the transition of boron concentrations in blood, tumour tissue, and normal tissue when using the same administration protocol.…”

“…However, these definitions do not consider the chemical interactions among these elements, or their grouping in molecular systems. When slow neutrons are relevant, especially at thermal and cold energies, one generally uses thermal scattering libraries related to phantom materials, for example, considering the hydrogen scattering from oxygen and carbon as that from pure water or pure polyethylene, respectively 18,19 . In other cases, the proper thermal neutron scattering libraries are often considered for the water contribution only.…”

“…Therefore, for the success of this procedure, the monitoring of the correct delivery and adequate concentration of boron carriers into the tumor region is essential, together with the correct simulation of the neutron transport in the human body to minimize the secondary dose, mainly related to proton recoil for fast neutrons, and 1 H(n,𝛾) 2 H and 14 N(n,p) 14 C reactions for moderated thermal neutrons. On the one hand, for the monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies of 10 B carriers, in recent years it has been proposed to fluorinate drugs for BNCT currently used in clinical applications, to use both Positron Emission Tomography (PET -by 18 F as PET tracer) 5 and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR -by 19 F nuclear spin). [6][7][8][9] On the other hand, for the treatment to be as efficient as possible, and to maximize (minimize) the primary (secondary) neutron dose to the tumor (to the rest of the body), the neutron interaction with the human body needs to be taken properly into account.…”

“…When slow neutrons are relevant, especially at thermal and cold energies, one generally uses thermal scattering libraries related to phantom materials, for example, considering the hydrogen scattering from oxygen and carbon as that from pure water or pure polyethylene, respectively. 18,19 In other cases, the proper thermal neutron scattering libraries are often considered for the water contribution only. Similarly, it is not trivial to adapt evaluations on phantoms to take into account patient-specific corrections, such as the homogeneous distribution of administrated boron-containing drugs also in the region around the tumor.As an example of the magnitude of such corrections on the simulated dose, Ye 20 showed that the boron self shielding from distributed BPA had an effect of decreasing the calculated neutron dose within the tumor by up to 20%.…”