Neutron imaging in a hospital environment

BNCT is a technique exploiting the capture conversion process of thermal neutrons in the reaction 10B(n,α)7Li 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 10B at different percentages, obtaining a minimum sensitivity of 1.9 nmol/cm2 . The paper describes the detector, the measurement setup and the first results with biological samples.