The microdosimetry of the (10)B reaction in boron neutron capture therapy: a new generalized theory.

The microdosimetry of (10)B thermal neutron capture reactions should be considered as an essential step to be followed before studying the radiobiological aspects of boron neutron capture therapy. The boron dose itself is insufficient as the only quantity used to describe the biological effectiveness of the (10)B reaction for two important reasons: the specific microdistribution that the (10)B carrier compound exhibits at the cellular level and the primarily stochastic nature of the energy deposition process, which influences the biological response to the particulate radiation. In this work, these two aspects are analyzed in detail and an innovative rigorous analytical framework is developed in the microdosimetry domain. This formalism provides the necessary microdosimetric tools for more precisely describing the (10)B dose distribution deposited in sensitive microscopic structures and offers improved approaches for analyzing the biological dose--effect relationship of (10)B reactions.