Sandro Pignata
Naples
Italy
Sandro Pignata studied medicine at the University “Federico II,” Naples, Italy, where he graduated in 1986. He went on to specialise in Gastroenterology in 1990 and then in Medical Oncology in 1998.
In 1996 he obtained his PhD in Gastrointestinal Physiology at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome.
Since 1993, Dr Pignata has been a member of staff at the National Cancer Institute in Naples, where he is now the head of the Uro-Gynaecological Department.
Dr Pignata is also president of the Multicentre Italian Trial in Ovarian cancer (MITO) group, that is the largest research group in the field of gynaecologic oncology in Italy and one of the largest in Europe, with more than 80 Italian centres involved in several randomised trials on the treatment of gynaecological cancer, whose results have been published in leading international journals. Through his work with the MITO group, Dr Pignata promoted translational research, creating in 2011 an independent network including 11 laboratories throughout Italy. The clinical researchers have successfully collaborated with such translational network, especially in the collection of cancer specimens for biobanking aiming to identify both predictive biomarkers of response to treatment and prognostic factors in patients suffering from gynaecological malignancies.
Dr Pignata participated in the preparation of the national guidelines on the treatment of ovarian, uterine, cervical and renal carcinoma. He is the first author of several papers that have contributed to changing the paradigm of gynaecological cancer treatment.
As Principal Investigator and head of the coordinating centre of several multicentre phase I-IV trials, Dr Pignata is contributing to the development of new tailored therapies in ovarian cancer. His work has recently been focused on understanding the role of angiogenesis pathway’s inhibition in the first (MITO-16A-MANGO OV2A phase IV trial) and second line in both platinum sensitive (MITO-16b - MANGO-OV2b – ENGOT-ov 17 phase III trial) and resistant ovarian cancer treatment (MITO 11 phase II trial).
Dr Pignata is member of the ESMO Faculty Group in Gynaecological Cancers. He is in the editorial boards of international journals such as Annals of Oncology.
Dr Pignata is currently the past president of the European Network of Gynaecological Oncological Trial Groups (ENGOT) that coordinates, promotes clinical trials within 20 trial groups from 15 European countries and performs cooperative clinical trials on patients with gynaecological cancer. He is a member of the Italian Association of Medical Oncologists (AIOM) and of the Gynaecological Group of the European Organisation for the Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).