News

Dr Permesh Dhillon, a member of the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre MRI and Precision Imaging theme, has won a prestigious national award for his work on a clinical trial investigating common procedures to treat acute stroke.

Permesh received the RCR-NIHR Outstanding Clinical Radiology Researcher (Trainee) of 2023 award run jointly by the Royal College of Radiologists and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Now a consultant interventional neuroradiologist at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) and Honorary Clinical Assistant Professor of Radiology at the University of Nottingham, as a trainee, Permesh went the extra mile in organising and running the ProFATE study.

Permesh worked to set up the multicentre ProFATE randomised control study, which looked at two different approaches for removing blood clots that cause acute strokes in patients.

The two different approaches are commonly used in clinical practice, but have not previously been compared in a prospective head-to-head trial. The trial ultimately recruited around 130 patients from four centres across the UK, although most participants came from NUH. Final results of the trial will be published in early 2024.

He led the preparatory work for the trial, secured funding from the Royal College of Radiologists and set up ProFATE as the principal investigator, all while completing his training in interventional neuroradiology.

Professor Rob Dineen, Professor of Neuroradiology at the University of Nottingham, honorary consultant neuroradiologist at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and Permesh’s academic mentor and co-investigator, praised him as an “exceptional trainee”.

It was very rare, he explained, for a trainee radiology clinician to set up a multicentre randomised trial of this nature on their own initiative. The achievement was all the more significant, as the study was undertaken while Dr Dhillon completed his training as an interventional neuroradiologist at NUH.