Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT)

Hello steemians, allow me to introduce BNCT to you. It is a type of cancer therapy, nevertheless effective.

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a binary form of cancer therapy which uses a boron containing compound that preferentially targets tumor sites. When the boron has concentrated the tumor sites, the sites are then irradiated by a neutron beam.

The beam produces neutron which interacts with the boron in the tumor sites, causing the boron to split into an alpha particle and lithium nucleus. Both of which causes significant damage to the cell in which it is contained, hence destroying the tumor sites.

The fascinating thing about it is that damage is only done on the tumor sites, sparing the healthy tissues. This is made possible because the boron has been already concentrated in the tumor sites and not in healthy cells.

Delivering boron to the right cells are done by delivery agents. In fact when BCNT was first used to treat brain tumor in the 1950s, failure to use a specified boron delivery agent led to its little success.

The two popular delivery agents are the BSH-Boron sodium captate and p-boronphenylalanine(BPA). It has been tested, although research are still on going.

Boron as two isotopes, it is 10-B that is been used because of its stability. After it is been delivered to the tumor site and irradiated with thermal neutrons, it produces 4-He and 7-Li ions. These ions deposits most of their energy within the cells containing the 10-B which does the damage.

The neutron beams used for BNCT must be thermal or epithermal depending on the depth of the tumor and they must be uncontaminated by fast neutron or gamma rays.

The advantage of using BNCT is the fact that it a particular tumor site can be targeted without targeting the surrounding healthy cells through the delivery agents. And also the concentration of boron can be controlled based on what the patient can take.

Its limitation is that it is difficult to control beam neutrons adequate for BNCT and also difficult to selectively concentrate boron in cancerous cells. Also the radiation dose is complicated compared to the traditional forms of radiation therapy.

Boron neutron capture therapy shows that it is a viable alternative to the traditional radiation therapy. It is also known after many researches that it is safe and indeed capable of combating virulent and deadly tumors.

Thanks for reading.

Image source: google images