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Prof. Dr. med. Thorsten Persigehl ( Deputy Editor, Cancer Imaging )

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Persigehl will support the Journal Cancer Imaging as Deputy Editor from April 2024.

Prof. Persigehl holds the professorship of Oncological Imaging and he is Vice-chair at the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the University Hospital of Cologne. The University Hospital of Cologne with his center of integrated oncology (CIO) is one of the largest comprehensive cancer centers in Germany.

As part of his clinical work, he is responsible for oncological imaging in general radiology with special expertise in abdominal imaging. Recently he founded the radiological CIO (radCIO) to reflect the increasing specialization and digitalization in radiology, supported by the EU program EFRE.

As part of his scientific focus, Prof. Persigehl is investigating, with funding from German Cancer Aid (DKH), how standardized reports can be created in radiology so that this data is available digitally for clinical patient care and oncological research. On the other hand, he is developing algorithms for artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically detect and segment lymph nodes in CT images, determine their anatomic localization as part of the German Research Foundation (DFG) Priority Program 2177. Another focus is on developing and testing AI algorithms that automatically search CT images for signs of an infection that could be linked to COVID-19.

In the years 2010 and 2011, he stayed as postdoctoral researcher in the oncological research group of Prof. Lawrence Schwartz at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in New York. Since 2017 he is elected fellow der International Cancer Imaging Society (ICIS) and since 2022 master of oncological imaging (ESOI). Prof. Persigehl is former chairman of the Oncological Working Group of the German Society of Radiology (DRG) and speaker of the Oncological Working Group (ABO) of the German Cancer Foundation (DKG).

He is currently involved as author and co-author in over 180 research papers, reviews and book chapters.