Boron Uptake in Mouse Brain Neoplasm

It was proposed (1) in 1940 that neoplastic cells may be destroyed in vivo if sufficient boron, in some suitable form, can be applied to the tumor in vivo and then irradiated with an adequate slow neutron flux. Such a boron-disintegration therapy3 is uniquely different from other types of irradiation processes because: 1. It is a nuclear disintegration process, not a radioactive process. This means that the dose can be accurately controlled and that the irradiation stops when the flux of slow neutrons is stopped. 2. Since the slow neutron flux results in a negligible irradiation to normal tissue, no irradiation occurs except where boron is present (assuming that the background of ~y-rays and fast neutrons is kept sufficiently low). This means that the dose is selectively administered only to those tissues containing boron, and thus the differential dose between normal and neoplastic tissue can be made as large as the differential boron content.