BIOGRAPHY

Lucia Del Mastro is a medical oncologist and a full professor and director of the Complex Operative Clinical Unit at the San Martino Polyclinic Hospital and University of Genoa, in Italy.

She was one of the first clinicians approaching the field of fertility preservation during cancer in Italy in the early 2000s.

While attending the degree course in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Naples, she started studying the toxic effects of chemotherapy on the ovaries in young patients. This interest shifted to the fertility preservation in cancer patients when she moved to Genoa, where she funded the first Italian Unit of Oncofertility at the San Martino Polyclinic Hospital in 2001. After that, Lucia Del Mastro and her research group then developed the LHRH analogue therapy to preserve ovarian function during chemotherapy that was approved by AIFA in 2016. She has also coordinated the writing of guidelines for the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM) to improve clinicians' awareness of fertility in cancer.