TY  - JOUR
AU  - Galuzzi, Laura
AU  - Parisi, Gabriele
AU  - Pascali, Valeria
AU  - Niklas, Martin
AU  - Bortot, Davide
AU  - Protti, Nicoletta
AU  - Altieri, Saverio
TI  - Fluorescent Neutron Track Detectors for Boron-10 Microdistribution Measurement in BNCT: A Feasibility Study.
JO  - Materials
VL  - 18
IS  - 3
SN  - 1996-1944
CY  - Basel
PB  - MDPI
M1  - DKFZ-2025-00373
SP  - 621
PY  - 2025
N1  - Division of Radiology and Division of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology, DKFZ
AB  - Boron Neutron-Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a form of radiation therapy that relies on the highly localized and enhanced biological effects of the 10B neutron capture (BNC) reaction products to selectively kill cancer cells. The efficacy of BNCT is, therefore, strongly dependent on the 10B spatial microdistribution at a subcellular level. Fluorescent Nuclear Track Detectors (FNTDs) could be a promising technology for measuring 10B microdistribution. They allow the measurement of the tracks of charged particles, and their biocompatibility allows cell samples to be deposited and grown on their surfaces. If a layer of borated cells is deposited and irradiated by a neutron field, the energy deposited by the BNC products and their trajectories can be measured by analyzing the corresponding tracks. This allows the reconstruction of the position where the measured particles were generated, hence the microdistribution of 10B. With respect to other techniques developed to measure 10B microdistribution, FNTDs would be a non-destructive, biocompatible, relatively easy-to-use, and accessible method, allowing the simultaneous measurement of the 10B microdistribution, the LET of particles, and the evolution of the related biological response on the very same cell sample. An FNTD was tested in three irradiation conditions to study the feasibility of FNTDs for BNCT applications. The FNTD allowed the successful measurement of the correct alpha particle range and mean penetration depth expected for all the radiation fields employed. This work proved the feasibility of FNTD in reconstructing the tracks of the alpha particles produced in typical BNCT conditions, thus the 10B microdistribution. Further experiments are planned at the University of Pavia's LENA (Applied Nuclear Energy Laboratory) to test the final set-up coupling the FNTD with borated cell samples.
KW  - BNCT (Other)
KW  - Fluorescent Nuclear Track Detector (Other)
KW  - boron microdistribution (Other)
KW  - particle track (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:39942287
C2  - pmc:PMC11818730
DO  - DOI:10.3390/ma18030621
UR  - https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/298939
ER  -