Objective
The objective of the proposal is to prepare detailed guidelines for the dosimetry of epithermal neutrons to be used for the treatment of cancer patients by boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), currently in advanced state of development at many European research reactors and accelerators. BNCT is a new form of radiotherapy which is expected, on solid grounds, to present major benefits in the treatment of very severe forms of cancer, as for instance braintumours of the type glioma. For the dosimetric measurements, whether in pre-clinical research or in clinical trials on human patients, these guidelines will ensure the level of accuracy, reliability and reproducibility, which is generally required in radiotherapy and which will be of crucial importance for the success and optimization of the BNCT treatments. The final outcome of the project will be a published code of practice for use by all European BNCT centres. In order to meet the objectives the work is divided into four work packages, in which the basic characteristics of the neutron beam (beam geometry, neutron and photon spectra, absorbed dose and fluence distributions) will be determined in a coherent and reproducible way. The scientific justification of the project is the necessity to ensure the comparability and critical appraisal of the results from various pre-clinical radiobiological experiments as well as the clinical trials on human patients. It is essential and feasible to introduce European uniformity of BNCT dosimetryat the present state of development of BNCT in Europe.
The existing international recommendations on radiotherapy dosimetry are not applicable to BNCT due to the complexity of the mixed neutron- and gamma-fields. Hence, guidance on acceptable dosimetric procedures on a European level is urgently needed to provide credibility and reliability for the various efforts, not at least to facilitate the recognition and clinical acceptance of this new treatment modality by the radiotherapeutic community and the national health authorities. The technical justification is formed by the complexity in the basic problems of the physical dosimetry prior to clinical treatment, for which guidance with proven methods for the characterization of the BNCT neutron beams is needed. This will be achieved by theoretical review and analysis of the available knowledge and experience, by systematic comparisons of the methods between the available European BNCT beams, and by comparisons of experimental results with theoretical calculations to determine the critical physical parameters affecting THE overall accuracy of the measurements.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
- natural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicsgeometry
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrymetalloids
- natural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsphotons
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsmathematical model
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