Oncological hadrontherapy and the TERA project

The first hour is devoted to a review of the techniques of conventional radiotherapy and of the European statistics on cancer treated and cured with the various techniques. In the second lesson the most recent applications of hadron accelerators to t Italian "Hadrontherapy Project" is introduced. This project (described in detail in the last lesson) foresees three independent but coherent activities :i) the construction of a large National Centre for Oncological Hadrontherary; (ii) the design and development of relatively small and "cheap" proton accelerators ("compact accelerators"), with which various centres could be equipped within reasonable cost boundaries; (iii) a multimedia information network (RITA) connecting a large number of Associated Centres with the Centres having hadron beams, so to select before any travelling the patients to be irradiated.