ANTICANCER RESEARCH

University of Pavia has a long tradition in research concerning the application of neutron radiation to medicine, in particular in the radiotherapy exploiting neutron capture. After many years of preclinical activity performed in vitro and in vivo on animal models, at the beginning of 2000, the Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) was applied to two patients affected by disseminated hepatic metastases, that were not surgically operable. After an infusion of BPAFructose, the livers of the patients were explanted and irradiated for 10 min in the irradiation facility designed on purpose and constructed inside the Thermal Column of the Triga Reactor. Finally, the organs were re-implanted in the patients. Presently, the research is very active at a preclinical level to extend the application of BNCT with collimated neutron beams to other diffuse tumors as limb osteosarcoma, pulmonary tumors and mesothelioma. A strong collaboration has been built between researchers of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), various Italian universities andsome international institutions and laboratories working in various aspects of BNCT: from the development of more selective new boron carriers, boron concentration measurements in biological samples by alpha spectrometry, to toxicity and effectiveness tests of the new carriers performed both in vitro and in vivo in a neutron irradiation position with low gamma background.