Biodistribution studies of boronophenylalanine–fructose in melanoma and brain tumor patients in Argentina

A study of the 10B-enriched p-boronophenylalanine–fructose complex (10BPA–F) infusion procedure in potential BNCT patients, including four melanoma of extremities and two high-grade gliomas (glioblastoma and ganglioglioma) was performed. T/B and S/B ratios for 10B concentrations in tumor (T), blood (B) and skin (S) were determined. The T/B ratio for the glioblastoma was in the 1.8–3.4 range. The ganglioglioma did not show any significant boron uptake. For the nodular metastasic melanoma T/B values were between 1.5 and 2.6 (average 2.1±0.4), corresponding to the lower limit of the mean values reported for different melanoma categories. This result might suggest a lower boron uptake for nodular metastasic melanomas. S/B was 1.5±0.4. An open two-compartment pharmacokinetic model was applied to predict the boron concentration during the course and at the end of a BNCT irradiation.