Hello everybody, my name is Dewi Kusuma Pratiwi. You can
call me Dewi. I am undergraduate student at Institut Teknologi Bandung. My
major is Physics. My sub major is Nuclear and Biophysics. Now, I have a final
project. The big topic is “Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) for Brain
Cancer”. My lecturer is DR. Rena Widiati.
Why I choise BNCT? BNCT is one of several cancer therapies.
BNCT can treat kind of difficult cancer. The example difficult cancer is brain
cancer. Many kinds of Brain cancer, one of all is Astrocytomas. Astrocytomas
can spread to all brain cells quickly and and fused with normal cells. So, it
difficult treated by operation. One kind of Astrocytomas is Glioblastoma
Multiforme. It is a high class Astrocytomas. This cancer usually happen on
adult people.
BNCT is a radiotherapy technique for cancer treatment. The
principle of BNCT is boron-10 particles are distributed into the cancer cells.
Then, the thermal neutrons emitted on it. The reaction that occurs produced
recoiling lithium-7 nuclei and high-energy alpha particles.
Boron has high absorption for thermal neutrons. While boron
components may interact with cancer cells with the help of a carrier agent.
When irradiated with thermal neutrons, cancer cells that have interacted with
boron receive high linear energy transfer, then its suffered damage. On my final
project, I want to simulate it with a software.
Wish me luck. :-)
