Titles and Affiliations
Associate Professor
Research Area
Personalizing treatment for older women with low-risk breast cancer.
Impact
For women aged 70 and older with early-stage, hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer, treatment decisions are difficult because it’s unclear whether hormone therapy, radiation therapy, or both together work best — so many women may end up receiving more treatment than necessary, leading to avoidable side effects, reduced quality of life, and greater healthcare burden. Dr. Meattini’s research builds on the EUROPA clinical trial, a large international study directly comparing radiation therapy alone to hormone therapy alone, which has shown it’s feasible to collect high-quality clinical and quality-of-life data and has revealed differences in treatment adherence, patient experience, and how radiation is delivered across centers.
What’s Next
Dr. Meattini will conduct integrated studies analyzing how differences in radiation delivery affect treatment side effects and quality of life, personalizing the best treatment option for each patient. He will also develop a cost-effectiveness model to determine which strategies offer the best value for patients and healthcare systems and conduct studies to better understand real-world barriers to treatment and research participation. By combining clinical outcomes, patient experience, and economic factors, this work aims to provide clearer, evidence-based guidance that reduces unnecessary treatment and supports more equitable, sustainable care for older women with breast cancer.
Biography
Icro Meattini, MD is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Florence and Head of the Breast Unit at Florence University Hospital (AOU Careggi), Italy, where he leads the multidisciplinary breast cancer team. His clinical and research career is dedicated to making breast cancer treatment more precise, effective, and less burdensome for patients. A major focus of his work is treatment optimisation: identifying patients who can safely receive less treatment, or shorter and more targeted treatment, without compromising their chances of cure. He has led research on partial-breast irradiation and shorter radiation schedules, including the Florence randomized trial of partial- versus whole-breast irradiation, which has contributed to the international adoption of five-fraction partial-breast radiotherapy.
Dr. Meattini is the principal investigator of EUROPA, an international randomized phase 3 trial involving more than 900 women aged 70 years and older with early-stage, low-risk breast cancer. EUROPA investigates whether selected women can be effectively treated with either breast radiation therapy or endocrine therapy alone, placing quality of life and treatment burden alongside cancer control as key measures of success.
