Comparison between proton boron fusion therapy (PBFT) and boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT): a Monte Carlo study

Abstract

// Joo-Young Jung 1,2,* , Do-Kun Yoon 1,* , Brendan Barraclough 2,3 , Heui Chang Lee 3,4 , Tae Suk Suh 1 and Bo Lu 2 1 Department of Biomedical Engineering and Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Medicine, Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea 2 Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA 3 Department of Biomedical Engineering, J. Crayton Pruitt Family, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA 4 Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Tae Suk Suh, email: // Keywords : proton boron fusion therapy, boron neutron capture therapy, Monte Carlo simulation, bragg-peak Received : November 23, 2016 Accepted : February 13, 2017 Published : February 25, 2017 Abstract The aim of this study is to compare between proton boron fusion therapy (PBFT) and boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) and to analyze dose escalation using a Monte Carlo simulation. We simulated a proton beam passing through the water with a boron uptake region (BUR) in MCNPX. To estimate the interaction between neutrons/protons and borons by the alpha particle, the simulation yielded with a variation of the center of the BUR location and proton energies. The variation and influence about the alpha particle were observed from the percent depth dose (PDD) and cross-plane dose profile of both the neutron and proton beams. The peak value of the maximum dose level when the boron particle was accurately labeled at the region was 192.4% among the energies. In all, we confirmed that prompt gamma rays of 478 keV and 719 keV were generated by the nuclear reactions in PBFT and BNCT, respectively. We validated the dramatic effectiveness of the alpha particle, especially in PBFT. The utility of PBFT was verified using the simulation and it has a potential for application in radiotherapy.