Neutron Imaging in a Hospital Environment

BNCT is a technique exploiting the capture conversion process of thermal neutrons in the reaction B-10(n,alpha)Li-7 to treat extended and radioresistant tumours. One of its main limitations is the lack of specificity of the boron compounds with respect to tumour cells, which needs to be studied with a dedicated neutron beam. This work, developed within the INFN PhoNeS project and carried out at the radiotherapy unit of the S. Anna Hospital in Como with a Varian Clinac 2100C/D, describes the possibility of neutron imaging, performed with the neutrons produced by a Linac detecting the alpha particles with a non depleted self-triggering microstrip silicon detector. Several trials have been made with solutions of B-10 at different percentages, obtaining a minimum sensitivity of 1.9 nmol/cm(2). The paper describes the detector, the measurement setup and the first results with biological samples.