The influence of heavy water on boron requirements for neutron capture therapy

Neutron penetration in tissue is a major limitation of thermal NCT, as such much work has centered upon the epithermal neutron beam in an effort to improve this situation. Further gains in neutron flux penetration, and thus therapeutic ratios, are possible if natural water is replaced with heavy water prior to therapy. Applying MCNP to a heterogeneous ellipsoidal skull/brain model, advantage depth and therapeutic depth parameters are studied as a function of heavy water replacement for a range of tumor to blood boron ratios. Both thermal (0.025 eV) and epithermal (2-7 keV) ideal neutron beams are analyzed. Using 10B ratios in the range of documented human uptake, the thermal advantage depth improved by approximately 0.7 cm for 20% D2O replacement, however, the therapeutic depth increased by less than half this value. For the epithermal beam, both the advantage depth and the therapeutic depth increased by over 1 cm. Effects of heavy water replacement on 10B requirements to therapeutically treat the midline of the brain are also evaluated.