Most Popular Books by DAVID PETER

The author's first book is a novel of passion and fantasy set in the midst of the war-ravaged Germany of 1945.

Boron neutron capture synovectomy (BNCS) is a potential application of the lʻB(n, a)7Li reaction for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis via synovial ablation. This thesis has explored several aspects of effective neutron delivery for accelerator-based BNCS, which is currently under investigation at the Laboratory for Accelerator Beam Applications (LABA) at MIT. Monte Carlo methods were used to design and optimize a neutron moderator- reflector-target assembly. Treatment times for parallel-opposed irradiations, based on a 1 mA accelerator current and 1000 ppm of lʻB uptake in the synovium, range from 3-48 minutes, depending on the neutron source reaction and targeted joint. The behavior of the therapy parameters was quantified for 'ʻB uptake in the synovium up to 19,000 ppm; the minimum necessary concentration was shown to be a few hundred ppm. A dedicated BNCS neutron beamline was constructed and installed at LABA based on the Monte Carlo design. Dosimetry measurements in an in-beam reference phantom showed good overall agreement for the fast neutron, thermal neutron, and photon dose rates, validating the Monte Carlo predictions of the beamline performance.