Design, construction and application of a neutron shield for the treatment of diffuse lung metastases in rats using BNCT

• A practical shielding device that comfortably houses a rat is presented.
• The shield allows a uniform and useful dose in the rat thoracic area.
• A novel computational dosimetry in animals based on Multicell is presented.
• Experimental characterization evidences the good performance of the shield.
• An irradiation based on a diffuse lung metastases model in rats was performed.

A model of multiple lung metastases in BDIX rats is under study at CNEA (Argentina) to evaluate the feasibility of BNCT for multiple, non-surgically resectable lung metastases. A practical shielding device that comfortably houses a rat, allowing delivery of a therapeutic, uniform dose in lungs while protecting the body from the neutron beam is presented. Based on the final design obtained by numerical simulations, the shield was constructed, experimentally characterized and recently used in the first in vivo experiment at RA-3.