DOE Research Contributions
to Radiation and Cancer Therapy
· Resources with Additional
Information
Over the time span of many years, DOE's research has made many contributions to radiation and cancer therapy, including PEREGRINE and Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT).
'PEREGRINE, a hardware and software system that addresses the problem of radiation therapy dosage using fundamental physics principles, is a revolutionary new tool for analyzing and planning radiation treatment for cancer patients.
About 90 percent of radiation treatment patients receive photon therapy, which is PEREGRINE's principal application. PEREGRINE may also be applied to the less frequently used electron-beam therapy and to brachytherapy, which is radiation therapy from an internally planted radiation source. It is effective for radiography, which predicts the pattern of radiation that is transmitted through a patient or other object.'1
'[B]oron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) [was] first attempted in the United States in the 1950s at Brookhaven National Laboratory. ... In BNCT, the patient consumes a drink containing boron, which is taken up by tumor cells. The tumor then is irradiated with a neutron beam, causing the boron to split into two highly energetic particles that destroy the tumor cells while largely sparing adjacent healthy cells.'2
Resources with Additional Information
Additional information about DOE research contributions to radiation and cancer therapy is available in documents and on the Web.
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