CERN Academic Training on hadron therapy - New treatment options at CNAO: the Boron Neutron Capture Therapy

About

Abstract

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a technique that aims at selectively treating tumour cells while sparing healthy tissue, by concentrating a boron compound in the tumour mass and then exposing the tumour to thermal neutrons: . The technique was first proposed soon after the discovery of the neutron and the observation that boron easily captures low-energy neutrons. This lecture provides an overview of BNCT and of the plans to integrate it as an additional treatment option at the CNAO hadron therapy centre, complete with a discussion of the technical challenges.

Bio - Monica Necchi

Monica Necchi is Head of the Expansion Project at the National Centre of Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO) in Pavia. After her Ph.D in Particle Physics, her experimental research activity has been focused for more than 10 years on particle detectors, being part of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) Experiment at CERN (Geneva).

She finally moved towards the physics application to health environments, as senior physicist at CNAO, where she's been responsible of research projects and grants for almost 10 years. She was member of the Steering Committee of the OMA (Optimization for Medical Accelerators) ITN Project, and she dealt with training and networking activities in the framework of all the European funded projects in CNAO.

Since 2020 she's in charge of the CNAO Expansion project, which includes the construction of a new building next to and integrated with the existing one, which will house a modern system for protons, with the latest technology and an area reserved to the oncological research. As Project Manager, she's dealing with several processes, especially the ones focusing on the high technology that's going to be implemented in CNAO.

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