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Professor Veeru Kasivisvanathan: at the forefront of Urological Oncology
For World Cancer Day 2025, we spoke to Professor Veeru Kasivisvanathan, an Academic Urological Surgeon based at UCL and UCLH, to find out more about what he does.
4 February 2025
What is your role and what does it involve?
I am Veeru Kasivisvanathan, Associate Professor of Urology at UCL. I specialise in urological oncology and I lead a team that aims to identify how we can improve the way we diagnose and treat urological cancers. We have particular expertise in delivering clinical trials in humans.
I am also an NHS consultant in urological cancer care. I diagnose patients with cancers such as prostate and bladder cancer, and I give them their treatments. This could be using robotic surgery to remove the cancerous organ, or a newer minimally invasive treatment using ultrasound or ice energy called focal therapy, which has been developed by some of our research team.
How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role?
I first joined UCL as an academic clinical fellow in urology in 2011. Over the past 14 years I have always had my research base at UCL, because it is one of the best places to deliver practice-changing clinical trials and translational research. We have a real hub of talented people with proven track-records for leading innovative trial design. When you combine this with the resources and facilities at UCL and UCLH, there is no better place in the world to do what I do.
What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?
I think my most impactful piece of work was the clinical trial I ran called PRECISION, which helped to bring about the biggest changes in prostate cancer diagnosis for 30 years, introducing MRI scans in men with suspected cancer. I published the paper as first author in the New England Journal of Medicine and this led to changes in guidelines around the world.
I’m really proud of founding BURST, which is a national urology research collaborative primarily led by trainees. It has helped us recruit 30,000 patients for studies in the past six years, and all the trainees involved have vastly improved their research skills. Being able to deliver large meaningful studies while training the next generation of researchers is a truly rewarding feeling.
Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list
I am just starting a project that looks at how AI might be used to diagnose prostate cancer. We will be testing this via a clinical trial in humans, in which we’ll assess whether AI can find the cancers that expert clinicians typically would. We will run it across 20 centres and find out whether AI has a role and if so, what role. Philanthropy has enabled us to get projects like this up and running at speed and react to new opportunities.
I co-lead a project called WAMS (Widening Access in Medical Sciences), which is about trying to support and empower people from underrepresented backgrounds to study at UCL and pursue science-related degrees. We host taster days at UCL, giving them the opportunity to speak to current students and see what different degrees would involve. This is really rewarding work and gives me a chance to meet and speak to students in the local community.
How is UCL helping to develop the next generation of cancer experts?
Alongside initiatives like WAMS and BURST, philanthropic opportunities at UCL have made such a difference in developing the next generations of experts in cancer. You often find that researchers who do not have a significant track record are less likely to receive large research funding awards because these awards tend to have very defined remits and restrictions. But philanthropic funders tend to have more flexibility and can listen directly to what patients want and what academics think is important. This gives junior researchers the chance to get their projects up and running and build their expertise and credentials.