LNL Annual Report 2004

In the framework of the Italian BNCT research program, the low-power (5 kW), fast-flux, TAPIRO research reactor, located at the ENEA Casaccia Centre near Rome, is foreseen to be implemented as the national facility devoted to supply an epithermal neutron beam required for malignant brain tumor treatment[1]. The feasibility to provide both thermal and epithermal suitable neutron beams in the main experimental cave of the TAPIRO reactor had already been investigated. A first thermal column prototype was designed and installed, aiming at the basic trials on small laboratory animals[2]. In the framework of INFN-ENEA scientific collaboration on SPES-BNCT project a preliminary radiobiological study has been carried out on a subcutaneous melanoma tumor model implanted in laboratory mice. They have then undergone treatment inside the irradiation cavity of TAPIRO thermal column, due to the lack of an intense enough thermal neutron source available at the LNL. These