Experimental oncology

Clinical onco-hematology

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Senior physician

Massimo Bernardi

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Onco-hematology group is active in basic research, clinical research and routine patient care for acute leukemias, myelodisplasia and mieloproliferative disorders. One of the main goals is implementation of investigator-initiated clinical research. To this purpose, the infrastructures comprise a clinical care facility with ISO-9001 accreditation comprising all the requirements for care of patients, a bone marrow transplantation unit (JACIE certified) and a dedicated Day Hospital Unit.

Research activity

Onco-Hematology unit participates to several original, national and international clinical and traslational studies, at our Institute and within disease networks (NILG, GIMEMA, EORTC, REL, EBMT). The unit enroll patients in multicentric phase I-III trials aimed at evaluating the efficacy of new drugs and new treatment strategies. The group also contributed to set up the REL MDS and AML, web- based, registries, which are collecting multiple epidemiologic, clinical, biological and genetic data from patients followed at the regional haematologic centers.

In 2009 the unit started to collect biological samples from patients with acute leukemias and MDS in the OSR biobank. Since then the biobank provided samples both for molecular characterization for multicentric studies within the REL, GITMO and EBM, with new generation assays, and for several laboratories inIRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele thus supporting several important pre-clinical studies in the field of AML and gene therapy. This group went on with studies on WT1 monitoring to predict MRD persistence or recurrence after allogeneic transplantation and evaluating WT1 and NPM1 levels, as a quantitative marker of leukemic contamination, in autologous PBSC used for autotransplant after myeloablative chemotherapy. The unit has also particularly focused and distinguished in the intensive treatment of elderly (> 65-70 y) patients with AML and MDS, including autologous or allogeneic transplantation.