Jelle Barentsz MD, PhD

Jelle Barentsz himself knows what it is to have the side effects of surgery and the uncertainty of disease. He received the Queen Wilhelmina Research Award of the Dutch Cancer Society, the Wertheim Salomonson Medal of the Dutch Society of Radiology, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the SUR, and the SCBTMR Lauterbur Award.

He got his MD in 1980 and a PhD in MRI of Urinary Bladder in 1990. About 180 peer-reviewed publications and international presentations followed, making him a well-known expert speaker in MRI of pelvic cancer. Excellence also accompanies him during his organizational adventures. He is Founding Member and Past-President of the ICIS and Past-President of the ESUR. Currently he is Professor of Radiology and Chair of the Prostate MR-Center of Excellence in Nijmegen. This center is visited by men from all over the world, seeing more than 3000 patients yearly for advanced prostate MRI.

His daily work consists of warfare fighting to help patients. His main enemy, prostate cancer, is hard and painful to trace. In the war against it, he doesn’t shoot with heavy artillery. Instead of blindly aiming with a cannon at a tumor, he shoots with a teleprecision gun called "multi-parametric" MRI. By doing so, a precise and accurate, simple, and fast diagnosis of cancer can be made with subsequent minimal invasive image-guided therapies. It’s his ambition to treat prostate cancer effectively with only minimal side-effects. It is clear that the value of patient care is central within Barentsz’ work. He takes full advantage of modern diagnostic and communication techniques. By using these he is establishing an e-network of top-expertise: see his TEDx 2012 talk: "YES WE SCAN".