Objective
The goals of the Concerted Action are twofold. One goal is the initiation, at the earliest possible date, of BNCT of gliomas at the HFR Petten. For this, a suitable neutron beam with the requisite nuclear characteristics needed to be designed and installed. Prior to patient trials, the necessary information about pharmacokinetics of boronated tumour seekers in patients, and about the effect of the proposed treatment on healthy tissue, have to be obtained. Only with this information, can an ethically justified treatment be envisaged.
The second goal is to treat tumours other than gliomas, and at treatment centers other then Petten. Here, intense work on the synthesis of compounds and testing of these compounds in cell and animal models is being carried out. Neutron sources at other research reactors, and also those based on accelerators, are being considered, with certain designs already submitted to feasibility studies.
Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is based on the nuclear reaction that occurs between a boron-10 nucleus and a thermal neutron. In this reaction, the thermal neutron is captured by the nucleus, and the boron-11 nucleus, formed as intermediate disintegrates spontaneously into a helium (mass number 4) alpha and a lithium (mass number 7) particle. Such particles, especially the 1.7 MeV alpha particle, are of sufficient energy that 1 or 2 particles traversing a cell nucleus suffice to lead to clonogenic death.
For treating tumours, 2 preconditions must be met. First, the tumour must contain a sufficient amount of boron and show a sufficiently high concentration differential compared to surrounding tissue, and second, the tumour must be reached by a sufficient number of thermal neutrons to sustain a lethal reaction.
By means of the nuclear code Monte Carlo code for Neutron and Photon transport (MCNP) a filtered neutron and gamma beam has been designed and installed at the high flux reactor (HFR) Petten.
The pharmacokinetics of the boron compound, BSH (Na2B12H11SH), has been investigated at various centres. BSH is the compound used for the treatment of brain tumour with thermal neutrons.
Following meetings and discussions with experts in the field, a detailed scheme for the healthy tissue tolerance study was derived. To study the on set of radiation damage, which is a function of boron concentration and irradiation time, the method of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was employed.
A detailed protocol has been proposed for the clinical trails that will start following the completion of the pharmacokinetics and healthy tissue tolerance studies and cooperation between several of the groups involved in the chemistry of boronated tumour seekers has started and resulted in the first, jointly planned, experiments. Collaboration between the persons with the capabilities and the expertise in the different task groups has been established.
Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is based on the nuclear reaction that occurs between a boron-10 nucleus and a thermal neutron. In this reaction, the thermal neutron is captured by the nucleus, and the boron-11 nucleus, formed as intermediate disintegrates spontaneously into a 4He alpha and a 7Li particle. Such particles, especially the 1.7 MeV alpha-particle, are of sufficient energy that one or two particles traversing a cell nucleus suffice to lead to clonogenic death.
For treating tumours, two preconditions must be met. First, the tumour must contain a sufficient amount of boron and show a sufficiently high concentration differential compared to surrounding tissue, and second, the tumour must be reached by a sufficient number of thermal neutrons to sustain a lethal reaction.
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. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry noble gases
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry alkali metals
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmacokinetics
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry metalloids
- natural sciences physical sciences theoretical physics particle physics photons
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Coordinator
28334 Bremen
Germany
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