Introduction to accelerators for boron neutron capture therapy

Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is one of the hopeful cancer therapies. Until recently, BNCT used the Nuclear fission reactor as a neutron source. However, many usable reactors for BNCT have been terminated and it is hard recently to build the new research reactor in many countries. Thus, a small accelerator which can supply the intense proton beam become a candidate of a neutron source instead of the reactor. Furthermore, it is impossible to install the reactor in a hospital but we can install the accelerator system in the hospital. In this article we describe the basic physics of the linear accelerator and cyclotron for BNCT. An ion source and the target for neutron production are also described briefly.