Cornelis van de Velde, 2007 recipient of the The Federation of European Cancer Societies (FECS) Clinical Research Award FECS/EJC Award

Cornelis van de Velde has been connected as a staff surgeon since 1952 with the Department of Surgery of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). In 1988 he was appointed as a full clinical professor of surgery. Since the same year he is leading the section Surgical Oncology and since 1999 also the section Gastrointestinal Surgery and Endocrine and Head and Neck Tumours of the Department of Surgery.

Cornelis van de Velde is an initiator and co-ordinator of collaborative networks of national and international basic and clinical research groups.

Cornelis van de Velde is especially known as a leading surgeon and scientist in the field of cancer treatment and diagnosis of colorectal cancer, breast cancer and gastric cancer. He is an initiator of basic and clinical research to improve prospects for cancer patients. The focus is on the development of new cancer treatment modalities (immunotherapy and gene therapy), the improvement of current cancer therapies (surgery of primary tumours and metastases, chemotherapy or radiotherapy in addition to surgical treatment; local treatment by isolated liver perfusion), new techniques for cancer diagnosis and prognosis (identification of sentinel lymph nodes, detection of minimal residual disease by using molecular techniques, identification of biomarkers that determine prognosis, and genomic and proteomic profiling of tumours and other tissues and blood samples).

Cornelis van de Velde has initiated and co-ordinated several clinical phase I, II, and III studies that have led to significant changes in the treatment of cancer patients. He has introduced and developed isolated liver perfusion as treatment for of liver-confined cancer metastases in the Netherlands. He is worldwide known for his studies on treatment of rectal cancer and gastric cancer. The TME (Total Mesorectal Excision) study, set up and co-ordinated by Cornelis van de Velde, as well as his study in which a Japanese approach in surgical method both influenced these treatment approaches at the global level. TME combined with preoperative local radiotherapy, as found in the clinical trial of Cornelis van de Velde to be the optimal treatment, is now the world wide standard therapy for rectal cancer. The gastric cancer and TME trials are regarded worldwide as exemplas of how clinical trials should be performed, in particular for the extensive quality control that was applied not only for data handling, but also for the method of surgery and pathology.

The work of Cornelis van de Velde comprises basic research at the molecular and cellular level of tumour development, both in humans and in animal models, and clinical studies. Much of his work has direct consequences in clinical practice, for instance isolated live perfusion. This treatment is clinically successfully applied at only two centres in the world: in Leiden and at the NIH, Bethesda, USA. Many surgeons from European countries visit Leiden to learn also this method of treatment. Other work involves immunological interactions of tumour cells to optimize cancer immunotherapy. Furthermore, the presence of minimal residual disease is student as well as tumour gene expression by micro array techniques are tested for their ability to diagnose cancer patients in an early stage of disease