The Italian hadrontherapy project CNAO

In 1991 INFN was first involved 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. This contribution reviews the present status of therapy with ion beams and describes the main TERA project CNAO (Centro Nazionaie di Adroterapia Oncologica) 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 1999 with CERN, the Med- AUSTRO project, GSI, Oncology 2000 (Prague) and TERA as partners. (18 refs).