Abstract
Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a promising technique for treating cancer. Co-operation and exchange programs for the BNCT relative researches have been established between St Andrews University, U. K., Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, and Tsing Hua University. The main topic of this thesis is focus on the research of microdosimetry and treatment planning verification in BNCT which were performed in the co-operation programs. In microdosimetry research, we designed and produced two tissue equivalent proportional counters (TEPC), with and without boron, in St Andrews University, and used them to simulate the irradiated cells in different sizes, depths, boron concentrations in Tsing Hua open pool reactor (THOR). After the epithermal neutron irradiations, the lineal energy (y) distributions were found. The beam quality and the effective RBE value of THOR BNCT beam were estimated. In treatment planning verification, a new PC-based version of Monte Carlo-based treatment planning code, NCTPlan, developed by the Harvard-MIT BNCT group was used and tested. Verifications of NCTPlan were performed in 3 comparisons. First, the dosimetric results of new, NCTPlan, and old version, MacNCTPlan, treatment planning were compared. Then, the errors in using different tissue composition were evaluated. Finally, the difference estimations by means of the input of analytical Snyder head phantom model between NCTPlan and MCNP reference dosimetry results were also performed.The BNCT researches and techniques in the world were enhanced and improved in theoretical and clinical, recently. The methods and results of this thesis would support the techniques and theories for relative performances of BNCT in THOR in Taiwan.