{"entity":{"id":"umberto-veronesi","kind":"person","name":"Umberto Veronesi","aka":[],"tldr":"The Milan surgeon whose randomised trial showed that removing a quarter of the breast with radiotherapy was as safe as removing the whole breast and the chest muscles, and who went on to found the European Institute of Oncology and, as health minister, to fund Italy's particle therapy centre.","summary":"Umberto Veronesi (Milan, 28 November 1925 to 8 November 2016) was scientific director of the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milan from 1976 to 1994, then founded the European Institute of Oncology (IEO), where he was scientific director and later scientific director emeritus, and was health minister from 26 April 2000 to 11 June 2001 in the second Amato government. AIRC names him among its founding members in 1965.\n\nHis Milan I trial randomised 701 women with breast cancers of 2 cm or less between 1973 and 1980 to Halsted radical mastectomy or to quadrantectomy, axillary dissection and radiotherapy; the twenty-year report in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 found death from any cause 41.7 per cent after breast conservation and 41.2 per cent after radical mastectomy. He was the last author of Gianni Bonadonna's 1976 trial of adjuvant CMF chemotherapy. CNAO's own history records that, as minister, he decided to fund the construction of the Pavia particle therapy centre.","asOf":"2026-11-03","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia (Italian)","url":"https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Veronesi"}],"tags":["breast-surgery","trialist","pioneer"],"related":["gianni-bonadonna","cnao-pavia","airc","paolo-veronesi"],"cancers":["breast-cancer"],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["int-milan","ieo-milan"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":["milan-i"],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-veronesi-milan-i-twenty-year-nejm-2002","paper-bonadonna-adjuvant-cmf-nejm-1976"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Surgical oncologist; scientific director of the Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, 1976 to 1994, founder of the European Institute of Oncology, and Italian health minister 2000 to 2001 (died 2016)","institutionId":"int-milan","specialisms":["Breast cancer surgery","Breast-conserving surgery","Cancer prevention"],"profiles":[{"label":"Wikipedia (Italian)","url":"https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Veronesi"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Veronesi%20U%5BAuthor%5D"}],"papers":[{"title":"Twenty-year follow-up of a randomized study comparing breast-conserving surgery with radical mastectomy for early breast cancer","journal":"New England Journal of Medicine","year":2002,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa020989","doi":"10.1056/NEJMoa020989"}],"papersExpected":true},"route":"/people/umberto-veronesi/","neighbours":{"person":[{"id":"gianni-bonadonna","kind":"person","name":"Gianni Bonadonna","route":"/people/gianni-bonadonna/"},{"id":"paolo-veronesi","kind":"person","name":"Paolo Veronesi","route":"/people/paolo-veronesi/"}],"institution":[{"id":"airc","kind":"institution","name":"Fondazione AIRC per la ricerca sul cancro","route":"/institutions/airc/"},{"id":"int-milan","kind":"institution","name":"Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori","route":"/institutions/int-milan/"},{"id":"ieo-milan","kind":"institution","name":"IEO (European Institute of Oncology)","route":"/institutions/ieo-milan/"},{"id":"cnao-pavia","kind":"institution","name":"National Centre for Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO), Pavia","route":"/institutions/cnao-pavia/"}],"cancer":[{"id":"breast-cancer","kind":"cancer","name":"Breast cancer (all types)","route":"/cancers/breast-cancer/"}],"trial":[{"id":"milan-i","kind":"trial","name":"Milan I (quadrantectomy against radical mastectomy)","route":"/trials/milan-i/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-bonadonna-adjuvant-cmf-nejm-1976","kind":"paper","name":"Adjuvant CMF chemotherapy after mastectomy for node-positive breast cancer (Bonadonna 1976)","route":"/key-papers/paper-bonadonna-adjuvant-cmf-nejm-1976/"},{"id":"paper-veronesi-milan-i-twenty-year-nejm-2002","kind":"paper","name":"Milan I at twenty years: breast-conserving surgery against radical mastectomy for small breast cancers","route":"/key-papers/paper-veronesi-milan-i-twenty-year-nejm-2002/"}]}}