CNAO--The Italian Centre for Light-Ion Therapy.

In 1991 the author involved the Italian institute of nuclear physics (INFN) in R&D work in the field of hadrontherapy. In 1992 the TERA Foundation was created with the purpose of forming and employing people fully devoted to the design, promotion and construction of hadrontherapy centres in Italy and in Europe. The present contribution describes the main project of TERA, the CNAO (Centro Nazionale di Adroterapia Oncologica), and the status of its construction in Pavia. The Italian Centre is based on the optimised medical synchrotron designed in the framework of the "Proton Ion Medical Machine Study" (PIMMS) carried out at CERN from 1996 to 2000 with CERN, the Med-AUSTRO project, Oncology 2000 (Prague) and TERA as partners. In the following years TERA introduced modifications and improvements in the original PIMMS design producing what is now dubbed the PIMMS/TERA design. Since 2001 the construction of CNAO has been endorsed by the Italian government to the CNAO Foundation formed by five major hospitals, seated in Milan and Pave, and by TERA. Since 2003 INFN is an Institutional Participant. The site chosen at the beginning of 2003 (37,000 m2) is in the close vicinities of one of the five hospitals, the San Matteo University Hospital of Pave. The construction plan foresees the treatment of the first patient at the end of 2007.