BRAINWAVE; Brit experts fight cancer with nuclear beams.

CANCER patients could be "nuked" in a revolutionary new treatment for brain tumours.

Scientists in Britain are working on a possible cure using waves of neutron beams to destroy the growth.

The idea is already being tested in America but is only available INSIDE nuclear reactor sites where beams can be generated safely.

Experts in the UK are working towards setting up the world's first non- reactor treatment clinic. Trials on patients here could start within two years. Professor Derek Beynon, based at Birmingham University and working with colleagues at Oxford, said yesterday: "We are creating a unique type of cancer treatment."

He added that the technology was tried and tested "but we hope our more sophisticated approach will help make this treatment a reality in the UK". Survival rates from brain tumours are very poor. In the BNCT method (boron neutron capture therapy), patients are injected with a boron compound - a chemical used to harden steel. This accumulates in the brain tumour.

A beam of low energy neutrons is fired at the tumour, where they react with the boron to produce cancer-killing nuclear particles. Healthy cells are left alone.

Tests backed by the Cancer Research Campaign are going on to work out the ideal dose of boron and the strength of the beam. Patients might then be treated in "one hit".