This year (2015) Prof Umberto Veronesi became 90 years old. Whoever had
the honor and the privilege to work with him a big portion of his
professional life, like myself, is in title to write a few words about
the professional life, about the research and the achievements of this
great man. With pleasure I am doing this today for my Turkish friends
and colleagues of SENATURK.
Thanks to the work of Umberto Veronesi, each year 300.000 women with
breast cancer can receive curative surgery that preserves their breast.
If we go back in the years, in 1969, the World Health Organization in
Geneva convened a meeting of investigators to evaluate the methods of
diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Professor Umberto Veronesi was
among the 15 experts invited. He presented a proposal for randomized
trial to compare the traditional mutilating procedure (mastectomy) with a
new conservative approach consisting of wide resection (which he was
later to define as Quadrantectomy), followed by radiotherapy. The
proposal stimulated intense discussion, at the end of which it was
overwhelmingly accepted.
Umberto Veronesi started a randomized study to 1973 and the accrual of
patients went on regularly until December 1980. The scientific community
was for the first time informed about the purpose of the trial and
interim report was published in 1977 in the Journal “Cancer”. The first
results of the trial have been published on 1 July 1981 in the New
England Journal of Medicine. These showed very clearly that there was no
difference between the two groups of patients as regards local
recurrences and survival. The title of the famous scientific paper
published in 1991 was as follows “Comparing radical mastectomy with
quadrantectomy, axillary dissection, and radiotherapy in patients with
small cancers of the breast”.
Umberto Veronesi also tried in Europe the sentinel node biopsy for
breast cancer, which avoids long-term problems with lymphoedema and
preserves the patient’s arm function. During all these years Prof.
Veronesi never stopped writing scientific papers, books of surgery,
directions for the women how to prevent breast cancer with a very
typical example of the foundation of EUROPA DONNA in Milan Italy and
through these all over Europe with a big success. In the same time he
founded a number of scientific groups and think-tanks in order to
promote research and teaching in Oncology. I believe that his big
achievement in teaching is the foundation of European School of Oncology
(ESO) in Milan, currently the worldwide International teaching
institution. Improving oncology knowledge in major European language as
Spanish and Portuguese, French, German, Italian and of course English.
ESO was established in 1982 on the initiative of Umberto Veronesi and
with the key support of Franco Cavalli, Louis Denis, Bob Pinedo, Michael
Peckham and Alberto Costa as director, with the aim to promote further
and deeper the knowledge of oncology with main emphasis on graduate
training catering to various levels of knowledge and education in
Europe. While doing so, ESO has entered a series of co-operations and
associations with various scientific societies which have devoted
themselves to similar aims. While embarking upon its third decade of
existence, ESO intends to reorient itself and adapt to the various
educational and scientific needs of present day Europe.
In the field of conferences, Umberto Veronesi founded the “Milan Breast”
which is a conference which takes place every 2 years in Milan Italy
and his mission is from its very beginning to provide state-of-the-art
information on breast cancer research. The conference aims to achieve a
balance of clinical, translational, and basic research, providing a
forum for interaction, communication, and education for a broad spectrum
of health professionals, researchers, and those with special interest
in breast cancer. The program of each “Milan Breast” has developed
around a fundamental concept: breast cancer is not a single disease.
Specific biological processes and distinct gene pathways are associated
with prognosis and sensitivity to chemotherapy, radiotherapy and
targeted agents in different subtypes of breast cancers.
In the year 2000, Prof. Veronesi became Minister of Health of the
Italian Republic. He immediately organized an international conference
with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome Italy with the
title “The fight against cancer in the emerging world” 25-26 January
2001 with a big success. During this conference, all of us who had the
honor to participate were to explain to the colleagues of the other
countries the Veronesi motto: “the only reasonable and fast solution is
to detect the disease early, when it is still curable”.
In the year 2003, Prof. Veronesi realizes another of his big dreams, the
Umberto Veronesi Foundation in order to sustain scientific research
through scholarships for doctors, physicians and projects of the highest
levels.
I would like to close this sort tribute to my teacher with the
initiative of a few good friends, ex students, either of the Istituto
Dei Tumori or the European Institute of Oncology, both in Milano in the
last 35 years, we established together the Umberto Veronesi Alumni Club,
which is a meeting point for friends, physicians who have participated
in the professional training, updating or educational courses organized
or directed by Umberto Veronesi. My colleagues in the scientific
committee of the club invited me to be the President and Dr Gabriel
Farante to be the Secretary General. The whole project was presented in a
meeting in Milano December 2014 during the Green Oasis Oncology Center,
a project of HGC (Health and General Consulting) which is part of the
Global War against cancer, the latest project of Prof. Veronesi and
associates against the enemy called “CANCER”.
Prof. Umberto Veronesi nowadays is working of “rethinking TNM
classification” and on the Decalogue of the rights of the cancer
patients.
George Asimakopoulos, MD
President; South East Europe Chapter EURAMA
