Department Head
Helsinki University Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Finland
Dr. Heikki Joensuu, M.D., is an oncologist by training. He was nominated as the Professor of Oncology, Helsinki University, Helsinki, Finland, in 1994. He has acted as the Medical Director of the Department of Oncology, Helsinki University Hospital, a Research Professor of the Academy of Finland, and the Research Director of the Helsinki Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Joensuu is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, a fellow of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences, and a member of the Member of Academia Europaea. He has won scientific awards, including the Hamilton Fairley Award from the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), the Hatanaka Award, and the Nordic Medicine Award. He has authored about 600 scientific papers listed on the PubMed leading to over 45,000 citations.
Dr. Joensuu has carried out both clinical and translational research on GIST for over 20 years. He has acted as the coordinating investigator in international clinical trials in GIST both in the adjuvant setting and the advanced disease setting. He treated the first GIST patient with imatinib and was an author in the study that led to the approval of imatinib for GIST. He is the coordinating principal investigator in the study that showed adjuvant imatinib to extend survival of patients with high-risk GIST. He designed the modified National Institutes of Health (NIH) risk classification for GIST, and he created the prognostic heat maps for GIST with his co-authors. He is a co-author of the European Society for Medical Oncology guidelines for of GIST.
