Computational aspects of treatment planning for neutron capture therapy

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a biochemically targeted form of binary radiation therapy that has the potential to deliver radiation to cancers with cellular dose selectivity. Accurate and efficient treatment planning calculations are essential to maximizing the efficacy of BNCT and ensuring patient safety. This thesis investigates computational aspects of BNCT treatment planning with the aim of improving both the accuracy and efficiency of the planning process as well as developing a better understanding of differences in computational dosimetry that exist between the different BNCT clinical sites around the world. A suite of computational dosimetry reference problems were developed as a basis for comprehensively testing, comparing, and analyzing current and future BNCT treatment planning systems (TPSs) under conditions relevant to both patient planning and planning system calibration. Using these reference problems, four of the TPSs that have been used in clinical BNCT (MacNCTPlan, NCTPlan, BNCTRtpe, and SERA) were compared to reference calculations performed with the well-benchmarked Monte Carlo radiation transport code MCNP5. The comparison of multidimensional dose data in the form of dose profiles, isodose contours, dose difference distributions and dose-volume histograms yielded many clinically significant differences. Additional calculations were performed to further investigate and explain significant deviations from the reference calculations.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Albritton, James Raymond, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dr. William S. Kiger, III.

• Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57683

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/57683