NUCLEAR-REACTION ANALYSIS OF BORON FOR MICROBEAM ANALYSIS OF MEDICAL SAMPLES

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a cancer therapy whose efficie ncy depends on the location of the boron within the cell. In the work presented in this paper an attempt is made to develop a method to anal yze boron in biological tissue, with a detection limit at the ng/cm(2) level and a lateral resolution of about 1 mu m. Various nuclear react ions were investigated in order to find one that can be used with a nu clear microprobe (NMP). B-10 was studied with the photon-tagged nuclea r reaction analysis (pNRA) in the backward and forward directions. B-1 1 was studied at the broad, low-energy resonance(E(p) = 0.66 MeV) that emits alpha particles. It is shown that it is possible to measure bor on in biological tissue with the latter technique at the NMP. The prob lem of imaging the cell is also discussed.