Professor Freddie Hamdy is Head of Department at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, and the Chief Investigator of The ProtecT Trial – the first trial to evaluate the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and acceptability of three major treatment options: active monitoring, surgery (radical prostatectomy) and radiotherapy for men with localised prostate cancer.

In September 2016, Professor Hamdy and his team published the first results of their 10 year study and made international headlines. A trial of 1,643 men with small prostate cancers resulted in the same 99% survival rate after a decade for those who had had surgery, radiotherapy or simply monitored the tumour.