Boron neutron capture device retarding body module and beam shaping body

Abstract

The utility model provides a boron neutron capture device retarding body module and a beam shaping body, the retarding body module is used in the beam shaping body of a BNCT, the retarding body module comprises a shell, a retarding sheet, a shaft body and a driving assembly, the shell is cylindrical, the upper bottom surface and the lower bottom surface are provided with circular holes with the same size, and beams in the BNCT can pass through the circular holes; the number of the retarding pieces is at least two, each retarding piece is provided with a shaft body capable of rotating around the retarding pieces, and the two ends of each shaft body are fixed to the upper bottom face and the lower bottom face of the shell; the driving assembly is used for driving the retarding sheet to rotate around the shaft body; the retarding piece is provided with at least one blocking position and at least one neutral gear in the process of rotating around the shaft body, the retarding piece completely blocks the circular hole when located at the blocking position, and the retarding piece does not block the circular hole when located at the neutral gear. By arranging the rotatable retarding piece, the thickness of the retarding area on the path through which the beam passes is adjusted, and then the purpose of adjusting beam energy through simple operation is achieved.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The utility model relates to the field of neutron capture medical equipment, in particular to a retarder module in a BNCT beam shaping body. Background Art

[0002] Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a radiotherapy technique that uses nuclear reactions between boron-10 and neutrons. It is particularly suitable for cancers that are difficult to treat with traditional methods, such as high-grade brain tumors and recurrent head and neck cancer. This treatment method is based on the principle that boron-10 produces high-energy alpha particles and lithium-7 atoms under neutron irradiation. These particles have high linear energy transfer (LET) characteristics and can effectively destroy the DNA of cancer cells. Before treatment, patients need to receive boron-containing drugs, which are designed to accumulate specifically in cancer cells. Commonly used drugs include boroamphetamine (BPA) and boric acid. High-energy alpha particles and lithium-7 atoms have a very short path length (several microns), which is enough to kill cancer cells but cause less damage to surrounding healthy cells.

[0003] BNCT requires a specific type of neutron source, which should produce neutrons of appropriate energy (low energy, i.e. thermal or epithermal neutrons) to maximize the activation of boron-10. Neutron sources can be nuclear reactors, particle accelerators or specific radioactive isotopes. The main function of the beam shaper is to shape and adjust the shape and energy distribution of the neutron beam to suit specific treatment needs. Its design and material selection have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the treatment. The shaper absorbs and scatters part of the neutrons to reduce the accompanying gamma rays and optimize the thermalization of the neutron beam. It is usually composed of multiple layers of materials with different functions, including heavy water, polyethylene, borides (such as aluminum boride), etc. Each material is selected according to its absorption and scattering characteristics of neutrons. The shape and configuration of the beam shaper must be precisely designed to match the size and shape of the treatment area.

[0004] In existing BNCT equipment, the design of the beam shaper is generally closed, and the beam entrance, target material, retarder, reflector outside the retarder, etc. are all fixed structures. The energy adjustment and guidance of the neutron beam are generally achieved by setting a modulation mechanism such as a collimator at the beam exit or by adjusting the neutron source. However, adjusting the neutron source requires more complicated operations and longer adjustment time, and the collimator can generally only provide guidance for the neutron beam. Therefore, a more convenient and faster radiation dose adjustment design is urgently needed. Utility Model Content

[0005] Based on this, the utility model provides a retarder module, which realizes the purpose of adjusting the neutron beam energy and radiation measurement by adjusting the thickness of the retarder blocking the neutron beam path by designing the retarder as a rotatable retarder integrated module.

[0006] In order to achieve the above objectives, the embodiments of this specification provide the following technical solutions:

[0007] The utility model provides a retarder module in a first aspect, which is used in a beam shaping body of a BNCT, comprising: a shell, which is cylindrical, and has circular holes of the same size on the upper bottom surface and the lower bottom surface, for the beam in the BNCT to pass through; at least two retarder plates, each of which has an axis that can rotate around it, and the two ends of the axis are fixed at eccentric positions on the upper bottom surface and the lower bottom surface of the shell; a driving component, which is used to drive the retarder plate to rotate around the axis; the retarder plate has at least one blocking position and at least one neutral position during the rotation process around the axis, and the retarder plate completely blocks the circular hole when it is in the blocking position, and does not block the circular hole at all when it is in the neutral position.

[0008] Furthermore, the driving assembly includes driving gears corresponding to the number of retarder plates, the shaft body is sleeved with driven gears and a kit corresponding to the driving gears, and the retarder plates are sleeved on the kit.

[0009] Furthermore, the number of the retarder plates is 5.

[0010] Furthermore, the retarder is a circular retarder, and the shaft is located at an eccentric position of the circular retarder.

[0011] Optionally, the retarder is an elliptical retarder, and the shaft is located at the center of a line connecting the foci of the elliptical retarder.

[0012] Furthermore, the material of the retarder includes at least one of MgF2, CaF2, AlF3, Al2O3, Al, LiF, 6LiF, 6LiCO3, BF3, BC4, and C2F4.

[0013] Furthermore, the drive assembly cover is provided with a shielding shell for preventing radiation damage in the BNCT environment.

[0014] Furthermore, the surfaces of the shaft and the transmission gears used in the driving assembly are coated with a nickel coating or a tungsten carbide coating to enhance radiation resistance.

[0015] In a second aspect, the utility model provides a beam shaping body, wherein a retarder module as in any of the above solutions is arranged inside a reflector of the beam shaping body.

[0016] Based on the above design, the beneficial effects of the utility model are:

[0017] First, the retarder module is provided with a plurality of rotatable retarder plates to adjust the thickness of the retarder in the beam channel, thereby realizing a technical solution of adjusting the beam energy by adjusting the retarder module, and the adjustment is quick and convenient.

[0018] Second, adjustable retarder allows beam blockage and delivery to be dynamically adjusted based on treatment needs, a capability that allows the beam to be more precisely targeted to tumor tissue while minimizing radiation exposure to surrounding healthy tissue.

[0019] Third, the use of multiple materials with specific neutron capture cross sections or chemical stabilities can be optimized for different treatment needs. This diversity in material selection makes the retarders more efficient in neutron thermalization and reducing the accompanying gamma radiation.

[0020] Fourth, the shielding case of the drive assembly enhances the radiation protection of the equipment, reduces maintenance costs and the long-term effects of radiation on equipment performance, and extends the service life of the equipment.

[0021] Fifth, by applying nickel coating or tungsten carbide coating on key transmission components, the radiation resistance of the entire system is enhanced, reducing the risk of mechanical wear and damage in a radiation environment.

[0022] Sixth, the modular and adjustable retarder can be easily operated through an advanced control system, making it easier for medical personnel to implement treatment plans. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0023] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application, the drawings required for use in the embodiments will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present application. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without paying creative work.

[0024] Figure 1 is an internal schematic diagram of the retarder module in the present application;

[0025] Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of an elliptical retarder 202 in the present application;

[0026] Figure 3 It is a schematic diagram of the rotation position of the elliptical retarder 202 in the present application;

[0027] Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view of the gear and shaft system in this application;

[0028] Figure 5 It is a front view of the upper bottom surface 102 of the housing corresponding to the elliptical retarder in the present application;

[0029] Figure 6 It is a front view of the upper bottom surface 102 of the shell corresponding to the circular retarder in the present application;

[0030] Figure 7 is a schematic diagram of the rotational position of the circular retarder 201 in the present application;

[0031] Figure 8 It is a schematic diagram of the interior of a plastic body using an elliptical retarder in the present application.

[0032] Description of reference numerals:

[0033] 1. Shell; 101. Shell side; 102. Shell upper bottom surface; 103. Circular hole; 2. Retarder; 201. Circular retarder; 202. Oval retarder; 203. Blocking position; 204. Neutral position; 3. Shaft; 301. Kit; 4. Drive assembly; 401. Driving gear; 402. Driven gear; 403. Shielding shell; 501. Beam inlet; 502 Beam outlet; 503. Reflector; 504. Shielding cover. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] The embodiments of the present application are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0035] The following describes the implementation methods of the present application through specific examples, and those skilled in the art can easily understand other advantages and effects of the present application from the contents disclosed in this specification. Obviously, the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present application, rather than all the embodiments. The present application can also be implemented or applied through other different specific implementation methods, and the details in this specification can also be modified or changed in various ways based on different viewpoints and applications without departing from the spirit of the present application. It should be noted that, in the absence of conflict, the following embodiments and the features in the embodiments can be combined with each other. Based on the embodiments in the present application, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in the field without making creative work belong to the scope of protection of the present application.

[0036] It should be noted that various aspects of the embodiments within the scope of the appended claims are described below. It should be apparent that the aspects described herein can be embodied in a wide variety of forms, and any specific structure and / or function described herein is merely illustrative. Based on the present application, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that an aspect described herein can be implemented independently of any other aspect, and two or more of these aspects can be combined in various ways. For example, any number and aspect described herein can be used to implement the device and / or practice the method. In addition, other structures and / or functionalities other than one or more of the aspects described herein can be used to implement this device and / or practice this method.

[0037] It should also be noted that the illustrations provided in the following embodiments are only schematic illustrations of the basic concept of the present application. The illustrations only show the elements related to the present application rather than being drawn according to the number, shape and size of the elements in actual implementation. In actual implementation, the type, quantity and proportion of each element may be changed arbitrarily, and the element layout may also be more complicated.

[0038] Additionally, in the following description, specific details are provided to facilitate a thorough understanding of the examples. However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the examples can be practiced without these specific details.

[0039] Based on this, the present specification proposes a retarder module in the first aspect, which is used in the beam shaping body of BNCT, including a shell, which is cylindrical, and the upper and lower bottom surfaces have circular holes of the same size for the beam in the BNCT to pass through; at least two retarder plates, each having an axis that can rotate around it, and the two ends of the axis are fixed to the upper and lower bottom surfaces of the shell; a driving assembly, which is used to drive the retarder plate to rotate around the axis; the retarder plate has at least one blocking position and at least one neutral position during the rotation around the axis, and the retarder plate completely blocks the circular hole when it is in the blocking position, and does not block the circular hole at all when it is in the neutral position.

[0040] To illustrate the retarder module described in the above embodiment, this specification provides Figure 1 The internal schematic diagram of the retarder module is shown, wherein the shell 1 of the retarder module is roughly cylindrical, the shell side 101 as the main part of the shell 1 forms a cavity for accommodating the retarder 2, a circular hole 103 is provided on the upper bottom surface 102 of the shell, and the lower bottom surface of the shell is provided with the same circular hole 103 (not shown) at the corresponding position of the upper bottom surface 102 of the shell, the beam of the BNCT passes through the circular hole 103, and the retarder 2 is sleeved on the shaft 3 and can rotate around the shaft 3, thereby forming a shielding for the circular hole 103 by rotation. It should be understood that Figure 1 The retarder 2 shown is circular and there are 5 of them, but the embodiment in the figure is only used as a feasible implementation method, and the shape and number of the retarder are not used as a strict limitation on the protection scope of the independent claim.

[0041] Figure 1 The retarder 2 shown is circular, and its shaft 1 is located at an eccentric position of the retarder. In another feasible embodiment, the retarder 2 is elliptical. Figure 2 As a schematic diagram of the elliptical retarder 202, the circular hole 103 is located at the center of the upper bottom surface 103 of the shell and the lower bottom surface of the shell (not shown), the shaft 3 is located at the center of the focal line of the elliptical retarder 201, and the elliptical retarder 202 rotates around the shaft 3, combined with Figure 3 It can be seen from the schematic diagram of the rotation position of the elliptical retarder 202 shown that when the elliptical retarder 202 rotates to the blocking position 203, the circular hole 103 is completely blocked by the elliptical retarder 202 at this position. When the elliptical retarder 202 rotates to the neutral position 204, the beam passing through the circular hole 103 is not blocked at all by the elliptical retarder 202 at this position. After the beam passes through the circular hole 103, the degree of reduction in its beam energy is related to the number and thickness of the elliptical retarder 202 located at the blocking position 203. It can be seen that the beam energy can be adjusted by operating the rotation of the elliptical retarder 202 by the drive component 4. The operation is simple and medical personnel can implement the treatment plan more easily. The drive component 4 includes a driving gear 401 and a driven gear 402. The driving gear 401 drives the driven gear 402 to rotate and then drives the elliptical retarder 202 to rotate.

[0042] In order to explain the driving method of the driving assembly 4 in detail in the above embodiment, this specification provides Figure 4 The gear and shaft system cross-section shown and Figure 5 The front view of the upper bottom surface 102 of the housing corresponding to the elliptical retarder shown, Figure 4 A shaft body 3 is arranged between the upper bottom surface 102 of the middle housing and the lower bottom surface of the housing (not shown), and a sleeve 301 is sleeved on the shaft body 3. The sleeve 301 is correspondingly connected to a driven gear 402 in the driving assembly 4, and the driven gear 402 drives the sleeve 301 to rotate, thereby realizing the rotation of the retarder sleeved on the sleeve 301; Figure 5 A circular hole 103 is provided at the center of the upper bottom surface 102 of the middle shell, and the driving gear 401 and the driven gear 202 of the driving component 4 are arranged around the shaft 3. The driving part of the driving gear 401 is provided with a shielding shell 403 to protect the motor of the driving component 4, reduce the radiation received by the motor, and enhance the radiation resistance of the driving component 4. In a more preferred embodiment, the shaft 3, the driving gear 401, the driven gear 402, and the kit 301 are all coated with a nickel layer or a tungsten carbide layer on the surface to enhance the radiation resistance, improve the overall radiation resistance of the entire retarder module, and extend the service life of the equipment. It should be understood that the preferred design described in this embodiment, such as the radiation-resistant coating and Figure 4 , Figure 5 The number of gears and the number of kits shown are all preferred embodiments and are not intended to strictly limit the scope of protection of the independent claims.

[0043] This manual also provides Figure 1 The front view of the upper bottom surface 102 of the housing in the embodiment shown is used to illustrate the driving method of the retarder module of the circular retarder and the position of the circular hole 103. Figure 6As shown, the shaft 3 is arranged at the center position of the upper bottom surface 102 of the shell, the circular hole 103 is arranged at the eccentric position of the upper bottom surface 102 of the shell, and the driving component 4 is arranged to avoid the circular hole 103 to ensure that the driving component 4 is not irradiated by the beam.

[0044] The above embodiment corresponds to a retarder module using a circular retarder 201, and the schematic diagram of the rotation position of the circular retarder 201 is shown in FIG. Figure 7 As shown, when the circular retarder 201 rotates to the blocking position 203, the circular hole 103 is completely blocked by the circular retarder 201 at this position. When the circular retarder 201 rotates to the neutral position 204, the beam passing through the circular hole 103 is not blocked at all by the circular retarder 201 at this position. After the beam passes through the circular hole 103, the degree of reduction in its beam energy is related to the number and thickness of the circular retarder 203 located at the blocking position 203.

[0045] In the above-mentioned various embodiments, the material of the retarder 2 should include at least one of MgF2, CaF2, AlF3, Al2O3, Al, LiF, 6LiF, 6LiCO3, BF3, BC4, and C2F4. By using a variety of materials with specific neutron capture cross-sections or chemical stability, it can be optimized according to different treatment needs. The diversity of material selection enables the retarder to more effectively perform neutron thermalization and reduce the accompanying gamma rays.

[0046] In a second aspect, the present specification provides a beam shaping body, wherein a reflector of the beam shaping body is provided with any retarder module provided in the first aspect. Figure 8 A schematic diagram of the interior of a shaping body using an elliptical retarder is shown, wherein the retarder module is a retarder module using an elliptical retarder 202, and its driving component 4 is located at one end close to the beam inlet 501, and the main body of the retarder module is composed of a shell side 101, and the elliptical retarder 202 is arranged in the shell side 101, and the lower bottom surface of the shell is not shown in the figure to display the internal structure of the retarder module, and the reflector 503 of the shaping body wraps the shell side 101 of the retarder module, and the beam outlet 502 is arranged at the center position of the shielding cover 504, which also plays the role of wrapping the retarder module, when the driving component 4 drives the elliptical retarder 202 to rotate, the thickness of the retarding area that the beam must pass through before passing through the beam outlet 502 can be adjusted, thereby achieving the purpose of simply controlling the beam energy. It should be understood that, in this embodiment, only the shaping body using an elliptical retarder is used as an example, and those skilled in the art can also adjust the beam entrance and exit positions or the position of the retarder module in the reflector 503 to realize the shaping body using a circular retarder.

[0047] In this specification, the same or similar parts between the various embodiments can be referred to each other, and each embodiment focuses on the differences from other embodiments. In particular, for the embodiments described later, the description is relatively simple, and the relevant parts can be referred to the partial description of the previous embodiments.

[0048] The above is only a specific implementation of the present application, but the protection scope of the present application is not limited thereto. Any changes or substitutions that can be easily thought of by a person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in the present application should be included in the protection scope of the present application. Therefore, the protection scope of the present application shall be based on the protection scope of the claims.

Claims

1. A retarder module, used in a beam shaping body of BNCT, characterized in that: include: A shell, the shell is cylindrical, and the upper bottom surface and the lower bottom surface have circular holes of the same size for the beam in the BNCT to pass through; At least two retarder plates, each of which has a shaft body that can rotate around it, and two ends of the shaft body are fixed to the upper bottom surface and the lower bottom surface of the shell; A driving assembly, the driving assembly is used to drive the retarder to rotate around the shaft; The retarder has at least one blocking position and at least one neutral position during rotation around the shaft. The retarder completely blocks the circular hole when it is in the blocking position, and does not block the circular hole at all when it is in the neutral position.

2. The retarder module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The driving assembly includes driving gears corresponding to the number of the retarder plates, the shaft body is sleeved with driven gears and a kit corresponding to the driving gears, and the retarder plates are sleeved on the kit.

3. The retarder module according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that: The number of the retarder is 5.

4. The retarder module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The retarder is a circular retarder, and the shaft is located at an eccentric position of the circular retarder.

5. The retarder module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The retarder is an elliptical retarder, and the shaft is located at the center of the focal line of the elliptical retarder.

6. The retarder module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The drive assembly cover is provided with a shielding shell for preventing radiation damage in a BNCT environment.

7. The retarder module according to claim 1, characterized in that: The surfaces of the shaft and the transmission gears used in the driving assembly are coated with a nickel coating or a tungsten carbide coating to enhance radiation resistance.

8. A beam shaping body, characterized in that: A retarder module as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7 is arranged inside the reflector of the beam shaping body.

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