Colin Hopper BDS MBBS MD FDS FRCS

Immediate Past Chairman (Sep 11-Sep 12) and Council Member (Sep 11- Sep 13)
Officer and Chairman of HNODS (Sep 08-Sep 11)
Consultant Head & Neck Surgeon, University College London Hospital
Senior Lecturer, University College London
Editor-in-Chief, Head & Neck Oncology

Current Research Interests

Since 1991, Mr Hopper has been working in the National Medical Centre. In this position he has led a variety of research projects on the use of Photodynamic Therapy in the treatment of oral squamous cell carcinoma. This program is currently the largest in the world with over 1000 treatments using the three main photosensitizers and he is the Principal Investigator on a series of ethically approved projects in excess of ten in all. This work has resulted in a number of publications and helped establish a clear role for this treatment in a variety of neoplastic and benign conditions in the head and neck. The position has been further strengthened now that one drug (Foscan) has a license in Europe for use in advanced head and neck cancer. He was part of the team that succeeded in gaining a license for this drug.

This work has advanced rapidly by the development of interstitial treatment of tumours using image guidance systems developed by Colin Hopper with the Department of Radiology and Medical Physics. This has become a national referral service and recognised by the UCLH Committee for new treatments. He also gets regular referrals from the EU for this treatment. This is partly as a result of running a series of training courses in Europe and at University College Hospital.

Mr Hopper is also involved in Photodynamic Therapy applications in a variety of other tumours and treats conditions such as metastatic breast cancer vascular limb lesions and penile carcinoma in conjunction with appropriate colleagues. He is also the world authority on the use of Photodynamic Therapy in the treatment of non-malignant conditions such as neurofibroma, haemangioma and lymphangioma.

Other related areas of research are fluorescence diagnostics, elastic scattering spectroscopy (optical techniques for tissue interrogation) and optical coherence tomography which have developed over the last seven years and some of these ideas are now being exploited commercially. It is planned to develop a dedicated optical biopsy clinic in the Head and Neck Centre at University College Hospital.

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