Advances in the INFN-Legnaro BNCT project for skin melanoma

The Legnaro National Laboratory is studying the construction of a specialised facility (SPES: Study and Production of Exotic Species) for Radioactive Ion Beams (RIB) originated by fission fragments produced by secondary neutrons. This facility will be characterised by moderate size, performance and cost and will allow also having intense neutron beams. It will allow for carrying out significant experiments and activities in both fundamental and applied nuclear physics (medicine, biology and Solid State); in particular, it will represent an attractive accelerator-based source for BNCT. The design is based on a high intensity proton LINAC as driver, which can deliver a proton beam in the energy range of 5 – 100 MeV with a beam power up to 3 MW. The full project will be developed in two phases. The first phase begin in 2001 and will be accomplished in five-seven years. During the first phase, most of the civil engineering, plants and enclosures are planned to be built together with the primary accelerator (up to 10 MeV, 300 kW protons), the neutron and RIBs production targets and the medical facility for the BNCT application. The BNCT project will use an intense 5 MeV proton beam to produce fast neutrons, which will be properly thermalised. The thermal and epithermal neutrons will be used for dosimetric, microdosimetric and radiobiological studies as well as for the skin melanoma treatment. In this paper we will present the state of art of this project.