Assessment of soft error risks to cardiac implantable electronic devices for boron neutron capture therapy using field-programmable gate arrays.

PURPOSE: Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a promising cancer treatment; however, it poses the risk of soft errors in cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). This study aimed to assess the occurrence of soft errors in CIEDs during BNCT and to correlate these errors with the neutron flux.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was used as a surrogate for CIED to measure the soft errors under thermal and epithermal neutron irradiation. The neutron flux at the FPGA position was assessed using gold wire activation, and the effective soft-error cross-section was calculated.

RESULTS

The neutron flux exhibited a clear inverse relationship with distance from the irradiation center. The number of soft errors observed in the FPGA mirrored this trend, showing a significant reduction as the distance from the beam center increased. A strong linear correlation was identified between the thermal neutron flux and soft-error rate, and a consistent reaction cross-section was derived.

CONCLUSION

This study provides foundational data on soft-error risks in electronic devices during BNCT. Our findings indicate that increasing the distance from the beam center significantly reduces the soft-error rate. These insights are crucial for developing robust radiotherapy safety guidelines for patients with implanted electronic devices.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11604-026-01993-9.