Curriculum Vitae
Barbara Malene Fischer,
Gormsvej 28, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Date of birth: Dec. 14th 1973 EDUCATION
1995-2002 Medicine, Faculty of Health, Copenhagen University 2003-2006 PhD-studies, Rigshospitalet and Copenhagen University 2009-2013 Specialization in Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine ACADEMIC DEGREES
MD June 2002, Copenhagen University
PhD Dec. 4th 2006: PET/CT and small cell lung cancer
DMSc Dec. 14th 2012: PET/CT in diagnosing and staging patients with non-small cell lung cancer,
CURRENT POSITIONS
June 2014- Consultant, Dept. of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark
Aug 2013- Associate professor of Research, Dept. of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health, Copenhagen University
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
Mar 2013- May 2014 Staff specialist, Dept. of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark Jun 2011 – Feb 2013 Senior registrar, Dept. of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and
PET, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen
Sep 2009 - May 2011 Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, registrar Hvidovre Hospital, Copenhagen
Feb 2009 - Aug 2009* Department of Oncology, registrar, Odense University Hospital, Odense Feb 2008 - Jan 2009* Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, registrar
Odense University Hospital, Odense
Dec 2007 - Jan 2008 Department of Oncology, research fellow, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen Jun 2006 - Nov 2007 Internship at Odense University Hospital, Odense
Nov 2002 - May 2006 Dept. of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine and PET, research fellow Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen
Aug 2002 - Oct 2002 Department of Oncology, registrar, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen
AWARDS AND HONOURS
2003 Tode Award (Danish Medical Society, Copenhagen)
2003 Carl-Christian Severin Christiansen & Betty Caroline f. Dahlstrøms Award
2006 The Tempus Award for Lung Cancer Journalism 2006
2011 Best presentation, Annual Meeting of Danish Society of Radiology 2012 Brinchs æreslegat (Grant of Honour)
CAREER BREAKS
• Maternity leave, Aug 1997 – Dec 1997 • Maternity leave, Feb 2000 – Aug 2000 • Maternity leave, March 2004 – Aug 2004
SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS
The common thread of my research is the exploration and implementation of functional imaging in cancer treatment. According to Google Scholar I have a total of 1044 citations (28 publications in peer review journals), H-index 13 (March 2014). My PhD established the detection limit of the PET/CT technology and suggested a model for in-vitro PET studies. Moreover, my PhD included pioneer clinical studies on PET/CT in staging and therapy evaluation of patients with small cell lung cancer. Since then, I have conducted, analysed and presented the world’s first randomized clinical trial on PET/CT in staging of patients with non-small cell lung cancer. This study
demonstrated that preoperative staging with PET/CT significantly reduces the frequency of futile thoracotomies as well as the total number of thoracotomies without affecting overall survival. The primary endpoints were published in 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results have been implemented into current national and international guidelines.
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
• European Lung Cancer Conference, Geneva 2012: State-of-the-art Staging: ”PET/CT Imaging” • European Multidisciplinary Conference in Thoracic Oncology, Lugano 2013: ”PET/CT for
Lung Nodules. Opportunities and pitfalls”.
• RH Kollokvium & Global Excellence Symposium, 2013: ”PET/MR – Potential use for
differential diagnosis after organ transplantation”. Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen
• Nordic Lung Cancer Symposium, Copenhagen 2014: ”PET/CT imaging in staging. Recent
advances and controversies”.
• Austrian Winter Symposium, the 31st International Symposium "Radioactive Isotopes in
Molecular Imaging" Zell am See 2014: ”Is imaging af major driver of cancer care costs?”
• Lecturer/Faculty, “PET/CT for mediastinal staging”, international post-graduate course on
Endoscopic Ultrasound in lung cancer, arranged by the European Respiratory Society, Copenhagen 2014.
OTHER SCIENTIFIC QUALIFICATIONS
• Reviewer for several journals, for example: “Lung Cancer”, “Journal of Thoracic Oncology”,
“JAMA”, “Journal of Nuclear Medicine” and “International Journal of Cancer”
• Member of editorial-board for American Journal of Nuclear Medicine • Referee for the Dutch Cancer Society, 2012
SUPERVISION
• Supervisor for PhD student Jacob Rasmussen: ”PET/CT and radiotherapy in head-and-neck
cancer”, 2012-2015, Dept. of Oncology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University
• Supervisor for PhD student Tine Christensen: ”FLT-PET/MR for therapy evaluation in patients
with small cell lung cancer”, 2013-2017, Cluster for Molecular Imaging, Faculty of Health, Copenhagen University
• Supervisor for PhD student Lotte Nygård: ”Assessment of reproducibility of PET/CT in
radiotherapy of lung cancer”, 2014-2017, Dept. of Oncology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University
• PhD student Simon Reuter: “Diagnosing patients with pleural effusion”, 2015, Dept. of
Pulmonology, Næstved Hospital, SDU
• Medical student Maria Danielsen “PET/CT in the follow up of malignant melanoma”, 2012
(accepted for publication in AJNMMI)
• Medical student Sine Hvid Rasmussen “Bone scintigraphy with triple SPECT/CT in detection
of bone metastases”, 2012. Presented as highlight abstract at SNM (Society of Nuclear Medicine) 2013 in Vancouver
• Medical student Christina Hassing ”DW-MRI and FDG-PET/CT in therapy evaluation of
Lymphoma”, 2013
• Medical student Philip Vensby “FDG-PET/CT for follow-up of patients with
malignantmelanoma – a retrospective clinical study”, 2014
• Student of Medical Engineering Martin Nørgaard, specialist course on “Combined analysis of
DW-MRI and FDG-PET”, 2014
• Pregraduate research year, Natasha Langer “PET/MR for Therapy Evaluation in Lung Cancer”,
2013-2014
• Pregraduate research year, Sine Hvid Rasmussen “PET/MR for diagnosing rejection after organ
transplantation”
TEACHING ACTIVITIES
1997-1999 Instructor, Anatomy and Histology for medical students, Faculty of Health, Copenhagen University
2011- Lecturer, Clinical use of PET/CT, students of medical engineering, Faculty of Health, Copenhagen University
2009, 11, 12, 13, 14 Lecturer, PET/CT and Lung Cancer, part of a post-graduate course on Lung Cancer for pulmonologists and oncologist, Stockholm, Sweden 2013 Lecturer, PET/CT and Lung Cancer, post-graduate course on
pulmonology for MDs specializing in Nuclear Medicine, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen
2013 Lecturer, PET/CT and PET/MR in Oncology Research, PhD-course on Clinical Cancer Research, Faculty of Health, Copenhagen University 2014 Lecturer/Faculty, PET/CT for mediastinal staging, international
post-graduate course on Endoscopic Ultrasound in lung cancer, arranged by the European Respiratory Society
MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
• Project manager of the PERALUST trial, a multicenter randomized clinical trial on the value of
PET/CT in lung cancer staging
• Founder of FOLK (Network of researchers with interest in Lung Cancer arranging annual Lung
Cancer Awareness Day in 2003-2009)
• Chair of YNK 2010-2014 (association for younger physicians and scientists in the field of
nuclear medicine in Denmark)
• Board member of the Danish Society of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine 2010-14 • Appointed Young EANM (European Association of Nuclear Medicine) delegate 2011-12 • Research Management course on Copenhagen Business School, June, Sep and Nov 2014. • Planning the scientific programme at the yearly joined meeting between the Danish Society for
Radiology and the Danish Society for Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, 2014 and 2015
• Affiliated member of the transplantation steering committee (MATCH) at Rigshospitalet
RECENT FUNDING
2014 Danish Cancer Society 2015 Michaelsen Foundation
PUBLICATIONS – PEER REVIEWED
1. Ladefoged CN, Hansen AE, Keller SH, Fischer BM, Rasmussen JH, Law I, Beyer T, Kjær
A, Højgaard L, Lauze F, Andersen FL. Improving quality and accuracy of PET/MR imaging of the brain, head and neck through inpainting of dental artifacts. Submitted Jan 2014
2. Rasmussen J, Vogelius IR, Fischer BM, Friborg J, Aznar MC, Persson GF, Håkansson K, Kristensen CA, Bentzen S, Spect L. Prognostic value of 18F-Fludeoxyglucose uptake in 287 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Head&Neck, 2014 May 7. doi: 10.1002/hed.23745.
3. Langer NH, Christensen TN, Langer S, Kjær A, Fischer BM. PET/CT in therapy
evaluation of patients with lung cancer. Expert Rev Anticancer Ther, May;14(5):595-620
4. Danielsen M, Højgaard L, Kjær A, Fischer BM. Positron Emission Tomography in the
Follow-up of Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma Patients: a Systematic Review. Am J Nucl Med Mol Imaging, 2013:4;17-28.
5. Harders S, Balyasnikova S, Fischer BM. Functional Imaging in Lung Cancer. Clinical Physiology and Molecular Imaging, accepted for publication oct 2013
6. Søgaard R, Fischer BM, Mortensen J, Rasmussen TR, Lassen U. The optimality of different strategies for supplemental staging non-small-cell lung cancer: a health economic decision analysis. Value of Health 2013;16:57-65.
7. Balyasnikova S, Löfgren J, de Nijs R, Zamogilnaya Y, Højgaard L, Fischer BM. PET/MR in oncology. An introduction with focus on MR and future perspectives for oncology imaging. Am J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2012;2(4):458-74
8. Fischer BM, Højgaard L. PET/MR-skanning. Ugeskr Læger 2012;174(12):787
9. Fischer BM, Mortensen J. The Role of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) for evaluation of Lung Nodules and Staging Lung Cancer. Curr Resp Care Reports 2012; DOI10.1007/s13665-011-0007-4.
10.Vach W, Høilund-Carlsen PF, Fischer BM, Gerke O, Weber W. How to study optimal timing of PET/CT for monitoring of cancer treatment. Am J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2011;1(1):54-62
11.Bjerregaard JK, Fischer BM, Vilstrup M, Petersen H, Mortensen, Hansen, Asmussen, Pfeiffer P, Høilund-Carlsen, PF. Feasibility of FDG-PET/CT imaging during concurrent chemo-radiotherapy in patients with locally-advanced pancreatic-cancer. Acta Oncologica. 2011;50(8):1250-2
12.*Søgaard R, Fischer BM, Mortensen J, Højgaard L, Lassen U. Preoperative staging of lung cancer with PET-CT: Cost-effectiveness evaluation alongside a randomised controlled trial. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2011 May;38(5):802-9
13.*Fischer BM, Mortensen J, Hansen H, Vilmann P, Larsen SL et al. Multimodality approach to mediastinal staging in non-small call lung cancer. Faults and benefits of PET-CT. Thorax. 2011 Apr;66(4):294-300
14.*Fischer BM, Lassen U, Mortensen J, Larsen SS, Loft A et al. Pre-operative staging of lung cancer with combined PET-CT. N Engl J Med July 2009;361:32-9.
15.Skov BG, Fischer BM, Pappot H. Oestrogen receptor beta over expression in males with non-small cell lung cancer is associated with better survival. Lung Cancer 2008 Jan;59(1):88-94.
16.Mortensen J, Fischer BM. Nuclear medicine techniques and applications in pulmonology with a spezial emphasis on PET. Turkiye Klinikleri J Int Med Sci, 2006, 2(32):68-74.
17.*Fischer BM, Mortensen J, Langer SW, Loft A, Berthelsen AK, Daugaard G, Hansen HH. PET/CT imaging in response evaluation of patients with small cell lung cancer. Lung Cancer 2006;54:41-49.
18.*Fischer BM, Mortensen J, Langer SW, Loft A, Berthelsen AK, Petersen BL, Daugaard G, Lassen U, Hansen HH. Staging small cell lung cancer – the value of PET/CT, bone scintigraphy and immunocytochemistry of bone marrow. A prospective study. Ann Oncol 2007 Feb;18(2):338-45
19.Fischer BMB, Mortensen J. The future in diagnosis and staging of lung cancer - Positron Emission Tomography. Respiration 2006;73(3):267 – 276.
20.*Fischer BMB, Olsen MWP, Ley CD, Klausen TL, Mortensen J, Højgaard L, Kristjansen PEG. How few cancer cells can be detected by positron emission tomography? A frequent question addresses by an in vitro study. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2006;33:697-702. 21.Almasi CE, Fischer BMB, Skuladottir H, Nøttrup T, Pappot H. Et bedre liv med lungekræft
– myter og facts. Månedsskrift for Praktisk Lægegerning 2005;83(11): 1371-81.
22.Pappot H, Fischer BMB, Elberling C, Skuladottir H, Nøttrup T. Lungekræft – en teknologisk udfordring II. Nye behandlingstiltag. Ugeskrift for Læger 2004;166:4243-5 23.Nøttrup T, Fischer BMB, Elberling C, Skuladottir H, Pappot H. Lungekræft – en
teknologisk udfordring I. Diagnostik og stadieinddeling. Ugeskrift for Læger 2004;166:4241-3
24.Vansteenkiste J, Fischer BM, Dooms C, Mortensen J. Positron emission tomography in the prognostic and therapeutic evaluation of lung cancer: a systematic review. Lancet Oncology 2004; 5:531-40
25.Bach-Gansmo T, Bogsrud TV, Aas M, Fischer BMB. Positron emisjonstomografi (PET) ved lungekreft. Tidsskr Nor Lægeforen 2004; 124:1088-89
26.Fischer BMB, Mortensen J. Lungecancer – Skal man bruge PET? Ugeskrift for Læger 2004; 166:2537-2541.
27.Fischer BMB, Elberling C, Skuladottit H, Nøttrup T, Christensen C, Pappot H. Kvinder og lungekræft: epidemiologi, rygning og biologi. Ugeskrift for Læger 2003; 165(47): 4550-2. 28.Fischer BMB, Mortensen J, Dirksen A, Eigtved A, Højgaard L. Positron Emission
Tomography of incidentally detected small pulmonary nodules. Nuclear Medicine Communications 2004; 25:3-9
29.*Fischer BMB, Mortensen J, Højgaard L. PET in the diagnosis and staging of lung cancer - A systematic, quantitative review of the literature. Lancet Oncology 2001; 2(11):659-666.
PUBLICATIONS – BOOK CHAPTERS
1. Fischer BM, Löfgren J: ”Hybrid Imaging: PET/CT and PET/MR”, Functional Imaging in Oncology, Springer, 2013
2. Mortensen J, Fischer M, Hess Søren: “Respirationsorganerne” . Klinisk
Nuklearmedicin, DSKFNM, p 75-91. Redaktion Charlotte Birk Christensen et al, 2011. 3. Gerke O, Fischer M. “Statistik i nuklearmedicin”. Klinisk Nuklearmedicin, DSKFNM, p
