Professor Hashim U. Ahmed Professor and chair of urology; consultant urological surgeon

Background

Professor Hashim U. Ahmed qualified from the University of Oxford where he attended St Peter’s College and Linacre College. Whilst he was a student he was awarded the William Osler Prize in Medicine. He then held house office posts in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham and University Hospital Manchester before returning to Oxford for an anatomy prosector post. Prof Ahmed then held senior house jobs in surgery on the Royal Free Hospital London rotation followed by specialist registrar posts at West Middlesex Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital and Imperial College London, University College Hospital and Watford General Hospital as part of the Imperial College urology rotation.

Professor Ahmed was a Pelican Cancer Foundation Research Fellow, this was followed by a Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinician Research Training Fellowship at University College London at which time a number of imaging and focal therapy trials began. His research interests are in health technology evaluation including multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), histoscanning, tissue type imaging, as well as therapeutic interventions such as high intensity focused ultrasound, irreversible electroporation, photodynamic therapy, cryotherapy and radiofrequency ablation. He has completed numerous phase I/II clinical trials evaluating the role of focal therapy in prostate cancer and is lead principal investigator and co-principal investigator in a number of multicentre trials including the UK National Institute for Health Research-Health Technology Assessment (NIHR-HTA) funded National Cancer Research Network (NCRN) PROMIS study evaluating the role of multi-parametric MRI in men with a raised PSA using template prostate mapping as the reference standard. Also for NCRN INDEX, a multicentre focal therapy study using high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with three-year follow-up and NCRN FORECAST. He previously held a £1.2 million MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship for five years and currently holds a £2 million Senior Clinical Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. 

Professor Ahmed has been visiting professor to University of California, Los Angeles as well as Tokyo, Weill-Cornell and Detroit universities and has given over 30 plenary lectures at national and international urology, oncology and imaging meetings. The team he led recently was awarded the BMJ/BMA Innovation Award 2015 and the Health Services Journal Acute Sector Innovation Award 2016.

Expertise

Raised PSA, investigations for prostate cancer, MRI image-fusion targeted prostate biopsies, focal therapy, high intensity focused ultrasound, cryotherapy, enlarged prostate, benign prostate hyperplasia, greenlight laser for prostate, Rezum water vapour therapy

Research & publications

Professor Ahmed's research interests are: 

• prostate diagnosis using novel imaging and tissue biomarkers 
• prostate treatments that reduce the harms of traditional surgery and radiotherapy 
• clinical trials and health technology evaluation 

Publications