Division of Radiation Pathology, Department of Radiobiology, National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
National Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Expert Rev Mol Med. 2022 Mar 31;24:e14. doi: 10.1017/erm.2022.7.
Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a tumour selective particle radiotherapy, based on the administration of boron carriers incorporated preferentially by tumour cells, followed by irradiation with a thermal or epithermal neutron beam. BNCT clinical results to date show therapeutic efficacy, associated with an improvement in patient quality of life and prolonged survival. Translational research in adequate experimental models is necessary to optimise BNCT for different pathologies. This review recapitulates some examples of BNCT radiobiological studies for different pathologies and clinical scenarios, strategies to optimise boron targeting, enhance BNCT therapeutic effect and minimise radiotoxicity. It also describes the radiobiological mechanisms induced by BNCT, and the importance of the detection of biomarkers to monitor and predict the therapeutic efficacy and toxicity of BNCT alone or combined with other strategies. Besides, there is a brief comment on the introduction of accelerator-based neutron sources in BNCT. These sources would expand the clinical BNCT services to more patients, and would help to make BNCT a standard treatment modality for various types of cancer. Radiobiological BNCT studies have been of utmost importance to make progress in BNCT, being essential to design novel, safe and effective clinical BNCT protocols.
硼中子俘获治疗（BNCT）是一种肿瘤选择性粒子放疗，基于优先被肿瘤细胞摄取的硼载体的给药，随后用热中子或超热中子束照射。迄今为止，BNCT 的临床结果显示出治疗效果，同时提高了患者的生活质量并延长了生存时间。在适当的实验模型中进行转化研究对于针对不同病理情况优化 BNCT 是必要的。本文综述了针对不同病理情况和临床情况的一些 BNCT 放射生物学研究的例子，包括优化硼靶向、增强 BNCT 治疗效果和最小化放射性毒性的策略。它还描述了 BNCT 诱导的放射生物学机制，以及检测生物标志物以监测和预测 BNCT 单独或与其他策略联合治疗的疗效和毒性的重要性。此外，还简要讨论了在 BNCT 中引入基于加速器的中子源。这些源将使更多的患者受益于临床 BNCT 服务，并有助于使 BNCT 成为各种类型癌症的标准治疗方式。放射生物学 BNCT 研究对于 BNCT 的进展至关重要，是设计新型、安全和有效的临床 BNCT 方案的基础。
