The Prostate MRI Reference Center (PMRC)
The PMRC with professor Jelle Barentsz as chairman, provides education, enables and implement new developments, and performs quality control of the Centers of Excellence and Scan Centers in their Prostate MR Network.
The goal of the PMRC is to help provide top-quality prostate MRI of the members of their Prostate MRI Network, and for them to be and remain number one. Moreover, the PMRC strives for its partners to have the best quality prostate MRI, while simultaneously guarantying them to be cost-effective as well.
The activities of the PMRC include:
Patient care: in collaboration with Radboudumc, Andros Clinics, and other prostate expert centers, the PMRC performs the best imaging diagnosis (MRI) for patients with, or at risk of prostate cancer.
Research and innovation: clinical projects research projects with the focus on implementation in patient care.
Educational courses for radiologists and MRI-technicians.
Level I courses for General Practitioners and Urologists
Level II courses (e.g. the hands-on course) for Radiologists with MRI experience
Level III courses for centers who want to become a Center of Excellence, and subsequently a member of our Prostate MR Network. These courses are highly individualized, and are focused on the whole prostate cancer diagnostic pathway, training both radiologists and technicians.
Support of implementing newly validated hard- and software innovations.
Prof. dr. Jelle Barentsz:
Jelle Barentsz is a recognized international top-researcher. He fights cancer using imaging. With optimized imaging he wants to reduce side effects of treatment and increase cure. He developed with the ESUR prostate group PI-RADS to improve early detection of aggressive prostate cancer. He gave rebirth to nanoMRI using small Fe-nano particles (ferumoxtran-10) to detect 2 mm small lymph node metastases.
With his team he further develops, validates, and implements new MRI-techniques. He is currently trying to develop risk-based MRI screening v 2.0 and prostate AI to detect significant prostate cancer earlier, less expensive, and better
Awards
Royal Decoration: "Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion"
Dutch Radiology Wertheim Salomonson Medal
SAR Lifetime Achievement Award
Dutch Cancer Society Queen Wilhelmina Research Award (2,000,000€)
SCBTMR Lauterbur Award (3x)
1st Author Best Clinical Research Paper European Urology 2017 (photo)
Highest Citation Award 2012-2016 European Radiology
He became MD in 1980, and PhD in 1990. He has 298 peer reviewed papers, h-factor: 65.
His 3 most important contributions are:
Rebirth of macrophages nanoMRI contrast agent (Ferrotran)
Development, validation and implementation of multi-parametric MRI, resulting in a global prostate MRI center of excellence network
Development and implementation of PI-RADS scoring system for standardized interpretation of prostate MRI
He is Former-President of ICIS and ESUR.
He is Professor of Radiology and Chairman of the Prostate MR-Excellence Center. This center provides education and quality control and is visited annually by > 3000 patients. Currently, he works at the Andros Clinics to further implement and improve “Precision Diagnosis”.
He is respected because he is an empathetic man who always puts the patient in the center. In order to achieve this goal, he does not allow concessions. His devotion, passion and quality lead to visits of patients from all over the world. International doctors visit his centre to learn his techniques and use them in their practice.
He is a gifted presenter although he usede to be a bit provocative: see e.g., TEDx 2012 "Yes We Scan": ”
His dreams:
1. MRI standard practice in men with elevated PSA
2. Global approval of Ferrotran nanoMRI
3. Prostate Cancer screening with PSA + Risk-Calculator + bpMRI
He knows these dreams will come true by focus, persistence, and the help of many others.
