Depth dose evaluation for prostate cancer treatment using boron neutron capture therapy

Considering the advantages of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) in treating prostate cancer, the amount of dose delivered to tumour and healthy tissues must be determined. Therefore, in this study, Monte Carlo analyses were performed to evaluate physical doses of adjacent healthy tissues and prostate tumours located at different depths of reference phantom developed by International Commission on Radiological Protection. According to the results, when prostate depth decreases, the amount of physical dose in tumour increases but the physical doses of healthy organs around the tumour remain constant. As expected, lithium filter decreases the damages to normal tissues. The estimations of physical dose, dose uniformity and dose distribution suggested that using BNCT with a filtered neutron beam could be applicable for prostates locate at the depths less than 7 cm from the body surface, which occurs in 5 % of all subjects. (author)