Matti Aapro, MD, was selected as the recipient of MASCC’s 2016 Distinguished Service Award. The Award recognizes meritorious achievement and outstanding contributions to the Society and its mission. Candidates are nominated by their peers in recognition of exemplary leadership and accomplishments in support of the Society’s mission. Currently Dean of the Multidisciplinary Oncology Institute, Genolier, Switzerland, Matti Aapro is widely recognized for his achievements in numerous areas of oncology and supportive cancer care. His expertise and energetic leadership have significantly furthered the aims of MASCC around the world.
Matti served as President of MASCC from 2004 to 2006 and has served several terms on MASCC’s Board of Directors, including the last three consecutive two-year terms, from 2010 to 2016. He also served as Chair of MASCC’s 2005 Annual Meeting in Geneva. Matti has been very active in and supportive of MASCC Study Groups and contributed many years of service as Chair of the Antiemetics Study Group. He also led the Study Group’s recent initiative to revise the MASCC Antiemetic Guidelines. In addition to his expertise in antiemetics, Matti has broad knowledge in other areas of supportive care, such as anemia, neutropenia, osteoporosis, and geriatrics, and has been involved in developing guidelines on several topics. He has been instrumental in the organization of several MASCC Study Groups, with major input in the Antiemetics, Geriatrics, and Nutrition & Cachexia Groups.
MASCC has greatly benefitted from Matti’s international activities and his many global contacts. He has been an enthusiastic ambassador for supportive care, as well as for MASCC, around the world and has facilitated links with ESMO and SIOG that have resulted in joint conference sessions. Matti is President of Honour of the French-speaking Supportive Care Association (AFSOS), which, along with Moïse Namer, he helped to create. More recently, Matti helped to develop the upcoming (and first ever) Regional Education Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer Patients for Eastern European and Balkan Region, which took place in Belgrade, Serbia, in December, 2016. He has also fostered working relationships with supportive care networks in China and Japan, where he has been appointed to the Board of the Japanese Association of Supportive Care in Cancer.
Other Professional Activities
Matti received his medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland, and was a fellow at the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson, Arizona, US. He is the founding Chair of the Medical and Radiation Therapy Department at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan.
A past Board member of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) and a past member of the Board of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), Matti is now an Executive Board member of the International Society for Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) and a member of the Board of ECCO (European CanCer Organisation). He also is on the Board and coordinates the Sharing Progress in Cancer Care Programme of the European School of Oncology (ESO). Matti has chaired the scientific and organizing committees of the International Union Against Cancer’s (UICC) World Cancer Congress in Geneva (2008) and in Shenzhen, China (2010) and, as a member of the Supportive Care Faculty of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), he leads the Supportive and Palliative Care track of the forthcoming ESMO 2017 meeting.
Matti is Editor-in-Chief of Critical Reviews in Oncology/Hematology, Editor-in-Chief of the Quality of Life in Oncology Resource Centre, past Associate Editor of Annals of Oncology and of the European Journal of Cancer, and Associate Editor for the Geriatric Section of The Oncologist. He is a Founding Editor of the Journal of Geriatric Oncology, an Editorial Board member of Annals of Oncology, Current Opinions in Oncology, Journal of Supportive Care in Cancer, Oncologie and Oncology, and a past Editorial Board member of the Journal of Clinical Oncology (breast section).
In addition to supportive care, Matti’s main research interests include new drug development, breast cancer, and cancer in the elderly. He has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed publications in professional medical journals and over 350 scientific abstracts. Matti is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Tampere (2013), and he received the 2010 Acta Oncologica Award and the 2012 ASCO B.J. Kennedy prize.
All of us at MASCC extend hearty congratulations and deep gratitude to Matti for his years of dedication to the Society.
