Ghent radiologist honoured by American Association of Physicists
For his lifelong work in greatly reducing the toxic effects of radiation therapy, UGent professor Wilfried De Neve has been bestowed Honorary Membership in the American Association of Physicists in Medicine
Distinguished service
According to the organisation, it’s because of researchers like De Neve (pictured right) that radiation continues to be a viable treatment next to chemotherapy and surgery. His work has contributed greatly to limiting the therapy’s negative effects on healthy tissue.
Back in the 1980s, De Neve, who works in UGent’s department of radiotherapy and experimental cancer research, brought together an international group of physicists, engineers and radiologists to improve radiation treatments. With his team, he pioneered intensity-modulated radiotherapy, or IMRT, a form of high-precision radiation, which led to a significant drop in toxicity levels in patients with tumours in the head or neck.
De Neve also succeeded in dramatically lowering the acute toxicity in breast cancer patients and lowering the risk of these patients getting lung cancer or heart failure as a consequence of radiotherapy.
Photo courtesy UGent
About the author
