Matteo Lambertini is associate professor and consultant in medical oncology at the University of Genova – IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino in Genova (Italy). He is mainly focused in the care of breast cancer patients and is deeply involved in breast cancer research. Above all, he has a particular expertise in the management of breast cancer in young women, with a specific attention to the fertility and pregnancy-related issues that they have to face after diagnosis.
During his medical oncology training, he had the opportunity to work and collaborate with several national and international leading experts in the field; these experiences have played a crucial role to deepen his skills in the management of breast cancer in young women. Thanks to the support of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), in 2018 he completed his PhD at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.) in Brussels (Belgium) with a project entitled “Unmet Fertility and Pregnancy-related Issues in Young Breast Cancer Patients”. With this work, he has contributed to improve our understanding of many controversial aspects
related to the management of breast cancer in young women specifically focusing on fertility preservation and the possibility to have a pregnancy following treatment completion, with the ultimate goal to further improve the care and quality of life of these young women.
He is member of the guideline group on fertility preservation in cancer patients for ESMO (Lambertini Met al, Ann Oncol 2020), the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embriology (ESHRE; Anderson RAet al, Hum Reprod Open 2020) and the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM; Lambertini M et al, Eur J Cancer 2017).
He has authored more than 320 publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. His most important research conducted so far addressed the role of administering gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogs during chemotherapy as a strategy to preserve ovarian function and fertility in early breast cancer patients who are candidates to receive cytotoxic therapy (Lambertini M et al, JAMA 2015 & Lambertini M et al, Ann Oncol 2015 & Lambertini M et al, Eur J Cancer 2017 & Lambertini M et al, J Clin Oncol 2018 & Lambertini M et al, JNCI 2022), the safety of having a pregnancy in women with prior history of breast cancer (Lambertini M et al, JNCI 2018 & Lambertini M et al, Cancer 2019 & Lambertini M et al, J Clin Oncol 2021), and the fertility and pregnancy-related issues in BRCA-mutated breast cancer patients (Lambertini et al, Ann Oncol 2018 & Lambertini M et al, J Clin Oncol 2020 & Lambertini M et al, JAMA 2024).
He is an active ESMO member since October 2011. He was awarded with the following ESMO Fellowships: Translational Research Unit Visit in 2012, Clinical Unit Visit in 2013 and Translational Research Fellowship in 2016-2018. In 2017, he attended the ESMO Leaders Generation Program that gave him the unique chance to acquire new communication and leadership skills as well as to deepen his involvement in the Society. He has served in the ESMO Press & Media Affairs committee and in the ESMO Breast Cancer Faculty. He is currently chair of the ESMO Young Oncologists Committee (YOC).
