Standardization and well planned clinical trials will still be necessary to establish Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), a non-invasive therapeutic technique, for treating invasive malignant tumours, as a routine therapy option, but recent advances in the technology suggest that it may become a more common treatment option in coming years. These were among the main conclusions of an IAEA virtual meeting held last month.
A game changer for BNCT in recent years was the development of compact accelerator-based neutron sources (CANS) that are now being placed in hospitals, an environment much more suited to clinical applications than a research reactor, which is where patients previously had to undergo BNCT treatment.
"Most research reactors are not well equipped to handle patients, and there were only a few reactors where patients could undergo BNCT," said Ian Swainson, Nuclear Physicist at the IAEA.
