  Extensive efforts have been made experimentally to reach nuclei in the super
heavy mass region of Z = 110 and above with suitable choices of projectile and
target nuclei. The cross sections for production of these nuclei are seen to be
in the range of a few picobarn or less, and pose great experimental challenges.
Theoretically, there have been extensive calculations for highly asymmetric
(hot-fusion) and moderately asymmetric (cold-fusion) collisions and only a few
theoretical studies are available for near symmetric collisions to estimate the
cross sections for production of super-heavy nuclei. In the present article, we
revisit the symmetric heavy ion reactions with suitable combinations of
projectile and target nuclei in the rare-earth region, that will lead to
compound systems with very low excitation energy and with better
neutron-to-proton ratio for higher stability.
