A multichannel neutron flux monitoring system for a boron neutron capture therapy facility

Abstract

A: The progress in the design of new accelerator-based neutron sources for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) generated new requirements to the detector systems to monitor the particle flux during the irradiation of patients. In the current research, we evaluated basic parameters of a twin scintillator-over-fiber system with a silicon photo-multiplier readout based on boron-enriched and boron-free plastic scintillators. The presented results showed that the proposed system could be used for monitoring of neutron flux, and the designed detector system demonstrated good linearity, up to ∼ 2 mA, limited by accelerator specifications at that time. K: Detector modelling and simulations I (interaction of radiation with matter, interaction of photons with matter, interaction of hadrons with matter, etc); Instrumentation for hadron therapy; Neutron detectors (cold, thermal, fast neutrons); Scintillators, scintillation and light emission processes (solid, gas and liquid scintillators) 1Corresponding author.

Method of Measuring High-LET Particles Dose

“…Of course, the proposed method can be used to measure the boron dose, but it turned out that it is easier and more reliable to measure it using our developed small-sized neutron detector with a polystyrene cast scintillator with boron (19). The results of measuring the spatial distribution of the boron dose have been reported elsewhere (20,21) Thus, all four components of the equivalent dose can be measured: the c-ray dose, with gamma-ray dosimeters; the boron dose, using a neutron detector with a polystyrene cast scintillator with boron; and the sum of the fast neutron dose and nitrogen dose, using the method described above.…”

Initial trials of a dose monitoring detector for boron neutron capture therapy

“…A much higher intensity of neutron source in comparison with reactor-based ones requires an adequate dose-monitoring system to verify treatment procedures. Therefore, we designed a multichannel scintillator-over-fiber detector system with a silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM) readout [4]. Simultaneous application of two different registration channels: the first one, sensitive to gamma radiation, and the second one, sensitive to gamma radiation and neutrons, allows us to estimate the contribution of the neutron component more accurately.…”

Evaluation of depth-dose profiles in a water phantom at the BNCT facility at BINP

“…Therefore, evaluation of the contribution of all possible components to the patient irradiation dose becomes a vital issue for treatment system optimization. To address this issue, we performed a series of experiments with a water phantom and a neutron flux monitoring system designed at BINP [5].…”