Tumours are the leading cause of death for women in the age group from 35 to 50m years and breast malignancies are the most frequent in this same age group. There is a widespread agreement in the medical community that an early diagnosis of this type of tumours coupled to a suitable therapy can increase survival rates up to 20 years: diagnostic radiology applied to mammography is a key tool in the eraly diagnosis of tumours.

Two basic elements are needed for a radiological examination: an X-ray source and a detector capable of measuring the transmitted radiation intensity as a function of the position on the sample to be imaged. Improving both source and detector is a possible way to optimize a mammographic examination increasing image quality and reducing the delivered dose.

Regarding the source, it is generally believed that a monochromatic X-ray beam would be ideal for radiography, with the added advantage of reducing the dose, since unwanted spectral components, besides the main energy component, are absent from the beam and do not contribute to the dose. Monochromatic X-ray beams with the required intensity are at present available only from synchrotron radiation facilities, such as Elettra in Trieste. The ideal detector should be capable of extracting the maximum amount of information from the beam transmitted through the sample to be imaged: this amounts to requiring a detector capable of counting every single photon in the beam.

The SYRMEP (Synchrotron Radiation for Medical Physics) project aims at improving both t basic elements of a radiography by optimizing the X ray source together with the detector.

SYRMEP is a collaboration among Università di Trieste, I.N.F.N.-Sezione di Trieste and Società Sincrotrone Trieste.