Alanine dosimeter response characteristics for charged particles in BNCT (July 2014)

In radiation cancer therapy, it is important to achieve an accurate determination of absorbed dose distribution and localization of the radiation dosage around tissues. For absorbed dose measurement, we have studied the response of alanine dosimeter to charged particles produced in the irradiation fields of Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT). The use of alanine dosimeter allows quantitative measurements of free radicals produced by irradiation using electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy. In this work, alanine dosimeter was irradiated and its response was compared for low energy protons, ⁴He, ⁷Li and ¹²C nucleus at the same absorbed dose. The result of our experiment shows that the alanine dosimeter dose response for charged particles depends on linear energy transfer (LET). (author)