Hashim Ahmed

Hashim qualified from the University of Oxford where he attended St Peters 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 Hospitals Manchester before returning to Oxford for an Anatomy Prosector post. Hashim 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/Imperial College, University College Hospital and Watford General Hospital as part of the Imperial College Urology Rotation.

He was a Pelican Cancer Foundation Research Fellow followed by a MRC Clinician Research Training fellowship at University College London at which time a number of imaging and focal therapy trials were started. His research interests are in Health Technology Evaluation including multi-parametric 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 PI and Co-PI in a number of multicentre trials including the UK NIHR-HTA funded study NCRN PROMIS study evaluating the role of multi-parametric MRI in men with a raised PSA using Template Prostate Mapping as the reference standard as well as NCRN INDEX, a multicentre focal therapy study using HIFU with 3 year follow-up and NCRN FORECAST. He previously held a £1.2M MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship for 5 years and currently holds a £2M Senior Clinical Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. His total grant income is £5M as lead applicant and £8M in total as co-applicant.

He has been visiting professor to UCLA, 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.

He holds a number of committee positions:

• Chair, ICTU-Surgery Trials Forum
• Member, Executive Committee for European Association of Urology Research Foundation
• Chair, Localised Disease Subgroup, NCRI Prostate Clinical Studies Group
• Member, NCRI Screening Prevention Early Diagnosis (SPED) Group
• Consulting Editor in Imaging, British Journal of Urology International
• Editorial Board, European Urology

Research interests

• 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

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

• Guillaumier S, Peters M, Arya M, et al., 2018, A multicentre study of 5-year outcomes following focal therapy in treating clinically significant nonmetastatic prostate cancer, European Urology, Vol:74, ISSN:0302-2838, Pages:422-429
• Ahmed HU, 2017, Opening our eyes to multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging before prostate biopsy, European Urology, Vol:73, ISSN:1421-993X, Pages:361-362
• Simmons LAM, Kanthabalan A, Arya M, et al., 2017, The PICTURE study: diagnostic accuracy of multiparametric MRI in men requiring a repeat prostate biopsy, British Journal of Cancer, Vol:116, ISSN:0007-0920, Pages:1159-1165
• Ahmed HU, Bosaily AE-S, Brown LC, et al., 2017, Diagnostic accuracy of multi-parametric MRI and TRUS biopsy in prostate cancer (PROMIS): a paired validating confirmatory study, The Lancet, Vol:389, ISSN:0140-6736, Pages:815-822
• Dickinson L, Arya M, Afzal N, et al., 2016, Medium- term Outcomes after Whole-gland High-intensity Focused Ultrasound for the Treatment of Nonmetastatic Prostate Cancer from a Multicentre Registry Cohort, European Urology, Vol:70, ISSN:0302-2838, Pages:668-674
• Bass EJ, Ahmed HU, 2016, Focal therapy in prostate cancer: A review of seven common controversies, Cancer Treatment Reviews, Vol:51, ISSN:0305-7372, Pages:27-34
• Ahmed HU, Dickinson L, Charman S, et al., 2015, Focal ablation targeted to the index lesion in multifocal localised prostate cancer: a prospective development study, European Urology, Vol:68, ISSN:0302-2838, Pages:927-936
• Valerio M, McCartan N, Freeman A, et al., 2015, Visually directed vs. software-based targeted biopsy compared to transperineal template mapping biopsy in the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer, Urologic Oncology, Vol:33, ISSN:1078-1439
• Valerio M, Donaldson I, Emberton M, et al., 2015, Detection of Clinically Significant Prostate Cancer Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Ultrasound Fusion Targeted Biopsy: A Systematic Review, European Urology, Vol:68, ISSN:0302-2838, Pages:8-19
• Singh PB, Anele C, Dalton E, et al., 2014, Prostate Cancer Tumour Features on Template Prostate-mapping Biopsies: Implications for Focal Therapy, European Urology, Vol:66, ISSN:0302-2838, Pages:12-19
• Wilt TJ, Ahmed HU, 2013, Prostate cancer screening and the management of clinically localized disease, British Medical Journal, Vol:346, ISSN:1756-1833
• Ahmed HU, Arya M, Freeman A, et al., 2012, Do low-grade and low-volume prostate cancers bear the hallmarks of malignancy?, Lancet Oncology, Vol:13, ISSN:1470-2045, Pages:E509-E517
• Ahmed HU, Hindley RG, Dickinson L, et al., 2012, Focal therapy for localised unifocal and multifocal prostate cancer: a prospective development study, Lancet Oncology, Vol:13, ISSN:1470-2045, Pages:622-632
• Ahmed HU, Hu Y, Carter T, et al., 2011, Characterizing Clinically Significant Prostate Cancer Using Template Prostate Mapping Biopsy, Journal of Urology, Vol:186, ISSN:0022-5347, Pages:458-464
• Ahmed HU, Freeman A, Kirkham A, et al., 2011, Focal Therapy for Localized Prostate Cancer: A Phase I/II Trial, Journal of Urology, Vol:185, ISSN:0022-5347, Pages:1246-1254
• Ahmed HU, Kirkham A, Arya M, et al., 2009, Is it time to consider a role for MRI before prostate biopsy?, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Vol:6, ISSN:1759-4774, Pages:197-206