DEVELOPMENT OF MINIATURE HIGH-DOSE-RATE 252Cf SOURCES FOR BORON-ENHANCED AND FAST NEUTRON BRACHYTHERAPY.

ABSTRACT: Californium-252 radioisotopic neutron source capsules have been used for brachytherapy treatment of tumors for nearly 30 years. In the United States, several manually afterloaded low-dose-rate (LDR) source designs have been produced; internationally, only four remotely afterloaded high-dose-rate (HDR) systems are known to have been demonstrated. These HDR systems typically used source capsules with diameters of several millimeters, which restricted their application in treating tumors in geometrically constrained or neurologically sensitive locations. The Californium Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), in collaboration with Isotron, Inc., is developing a family of miniature HDR 252Cf source designs that will be coupled to a remot