Boron concentration imaging for BNCT

A precise knowledge of the boron concentration, both in tumor and healthy tissues, is an essential requirement for the BNCT treatment of cancer. Many methods can be used to detect the boron signal coming from biological samples, but it is very important to know what type of tissues are present in the sample. In the case of liver metastases, for example, tumor cells are disseminated through the healthy tissues. Tumor cells, normal hepatocytes, blood cells and necrotic material can be simultaneously present inside a metastatic nodule having a diameter of a few millimeters . In this paper we show the results of the analysis of tumor samples from human liver infused by BPA that was performed using neutron radiography. We have found that the boron concentration is very different in the various biological materials. This demands to take into account the morphology of the sample for the correct evaluation of the boron concentration.