NOVOSIBIRSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2022) China has started treating cancer under the new methodology based on an accelerator neutron source created at Russia's Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (BINP SB RAS), with Moscow scheduled to launch the use of a similar technology in 2025.
In August, the Russian institute announced plans to develop and produce the accelerator neutron source for trials of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). Specialists plan to deliver the source to Russia's Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology by late 2024. The launch of the technology's use is scheduled for early 2025.
"In the city of Xiamen (China), the first patient (the first in the clinic and the first in China) underwent the boron neutron capture therapy using the accelerator source of epithermal neutrons created jointly by the BINP SB RAS and (US biotechnology company) TAE Life Sciences. The energy of the proton beam is 2.3 MeV, the current reaches 8 mA, exposure time is 45 minutes," the institute said in Telegram.
The accelerator neutron source will represent an upgraded version of the BNCT unit delivered previously to China. According to INP SB RAS head Pavel Logachev, specialists working on the accelerator for Russia's oncology center are using the experience gained during the production of the unit for the Chinese clinic. Though the two accelerators will be similar, the Russian version will reduce the likelihood of failures and increase the productivity of the method, according to Logachev.
In June 2020, two Japanese centers equipped with accelerator neutron sources launched clinical therapy of cancerous tumors using the BNCT method. To date, four more BNCT clinics have been built across the world, including in China's Xiamen.
BNCT is a method of selective destruction of malignant tumor cells. It provides for the accumulation of boron-10 isotope in a cell and its subsequent irradiation with a neutron beam. Boron absorbs neutrons, after which a nuclear reaction takes place in the cell with a large release of energy. The process results in the death of the cancer cell.
