A fundamental study on hyper-thermal neutrons for neutron capture therapy

The utilization of hyper-thermal neutrons, which have an energy spectrum with a Maxwellian distribution at a higher temperature than room temperature (300 K), was studied in order to improve the thermal neutron flux distribution at depth in a living body for neutron capture therapy. Simulation calculations were carried out using a Monte Carlo code 'MCNP-V3' in order to investigate the characteristics of hyper-thermal neutrons, i.e. (i) depth dependence of the neutron energy spectrum, and (ii) depth distribution of the reaction rate in a water phantom for materials with 1/v neutron absorption. It is confirmed that hyper-thermal neutron irradiation can improve the thermal neutron flux distribution in the deeper areas in a living body compared with thermal neutron irradiation. When hyper-thermal neutrons with a 3000 K Maxwellian distribution are incident on a body, the reaction rates of 1/v materials such as 14N, 10B etc are about twice that observed for incident thermal neutrons at 300 K, at a depth of 5 cm. The limit of the treatable depth for tumours having 30 ppm 10B is expected to be about 1.5 cm greater by utilizing hyper-thermal neutrons at 3000 K compared with the incidence of thermal neutrons at 300 K.