Dr. Dirk Van Gestel

Dr. Dirk Van Gestel is a medical doctor who graduated cum laude from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1993. He trained as a radiotherapist at the Catholic University of Louvain and at the AZ Middelheim from 1994 to 1999 and has been working as a radiotherapist at the Radiotherapy Department of the Middelheim Hospital, affiliated with the University of Antwerp, since 1999. Dr. Van Gestel has a special interest in head and neck cancer, soft tissue sarcomas, radiotherapy planning, quality control, and the implementation of new technologies in clinical routine.

In 2007, Dr. Van Gestel started up the Radiotherapy-Tomotherapy unit at the Antwerp University Hospital and has been supporting the Tomotherapy Hi-Art teaching classes at the European training center in Antwerp by explaining the medical aspects and possibilities of Tomotherapy. From 2009 to 2014, Dr. Van Gestel founded and organized the multidisciplinary radiotherapy research group at the Antwerp University Hospital.

Dr. Van Gestel is a member of several organizations, including ESTRO, BVRO, the Flemish task group of Head and Neck Cancer, EORTC Head and Neck Group, EORTC radiation oncology group, European Head and Neck Society (EHNS), and the multidisciplinary commissions of head and neck cancer and of bone and soft tissue tumors of the Institut Jules Bordet and the Erasmus Hospital. In addition, Dr. Van Gestel is the President of the Belgian Society for Radiation Oncology and the Belgian Association for Radiation Oncology. He has given 69 national and 47 international oral presentations and 10 proctorships/workshops, mainly on Intensity Modulated radiotherapy and Helical Tomotherapy in general and in head and neck cancer, soft tissue sarcomas in particular, and Quality Assurance.

Dr. Van Gestel is a member of the redaction of Onco-hemato and Frontiers in Oncology and a reviewer for several scientific journals such as Radiotherapy and Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Annals of Oncology, Acta Oncologica, European Journal of Cancer, and Onco-hemato. He is also an editor for Frontiers of Oncology.

Currently, Dr. Van Gestel is the Head of the Radiotherapy Department and a Professor in Radiotherapy at the Jules Bordet Institute.