Neutronic Design of a Fission Converter-Based Epithermal Neutron Beam for Neutron Capture Therapy
Authors:
- 1 January 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Nuclear Science and Engineering
- Vol. 131 (1) , 1-22
Abstract
To meet the needs for neutron capture therapy (NCT) irradiations, a high-intensity, high-quality fission converter-based epithermal neutron beam has been designed for the MITR-II research reactor. This epithermal neutron beam, capable of delivering treatments in a few minutes with negligible background contamination from fast neutrons and photons, will be installed in the present thermal column and hohlraum of the 5-MW MITR-II research reactor. Spent or fresh MITR-II fuel elements will be used to fuel the converter. With a fission converter power of ~80 kW using spent fuel, epithermal fluxes (1 eV < E < 10 keV) in excess of 1010 n/cm2·s are achievable at the target position with negligible photon and fast neutron contamination, i.e., <2 × 10-11 cGy·cm2/n. With the currently available 10B delivery compound boronophenylalanine-fructose, average therapeutic ratios of ~5 can be achieved using this beam for brain irradiations with deep effective penetration (~9.5 cm) and high dose rates of up to 400 to...Keywords
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