Born in 1948 in Haugesund, Norway; present position: Professor I, MD, PhD (DMed), Section for Oncology, Institute of Medicine, and Senior Consultant, Haukeland University Hospital, Norway.
Since 1977 Professor Dahl has studied hyperthermia in the laboratory and in the clinic. His first research activity concentrated on the interaction of heat and chemotherapy drugs. He demonstrated that the interaction was most effective when drugs were administered immediately before hyperthermia. Animal studies were further developed with focus on thermal tolerance and establishment of an intracranial tumour model Citation[1]. With his collaborators, Baard-Christian Schem, Bård Kronen Krossnes, and Hans Petter Eikesdal, he studied the potentiation of drug interactions with hyperthermia by combination with glucose loading and directly lowering pH in 1994, the enhancement of hyperthermia alone by lowering blood pressure in rats in 2004, and the interaction of the vascular destructive agents vinblastine and combretastatin in 2002. With Sten Hornslet he developed a treatment planning system suitable for simulation of clinical treatments based on SAR absorbtion (1996), and with Erling Dahl Borkamo he is currently studying the gene expression and molecular mechanisms for a positive interaction of low dose chemotherapy and hyperthermia.
In the clinic, Olav Dahl started first with local hyperthermia in the 1980s. He is coauthor of the ESHO melanoma study published in the Lancet which clearly documented the proof of principle for hyperthermia in a clinical setting. He participated in the study on trimodality therapy for cervical cancer led by Professor Westermann, and in the ESHO/EORTC sarcoma study led by Professor Issels.
Professor Dahl started a randomized study on radiation in operable rectal cancer in 1976. He participated in the introduction of the total mesorectal excision in Norway in 1992–1993 and organized a project for registration of all rectal cancers in Norway including details on 12 000 patients. His team is currently running a phase II study with hyperthermia, chemotherapy and radiation for locally advanced rectal cancer.
He has been member of the board for the Swedish Norwegian Testicular Cancer Project which gives guidelines for treatment of patients in Sweden and Norway after defined protocols since 1980.
Professor Dahl was President of ESHO twice, totaling nine years and President of ISHO for four years. Together with Jens Overgaard he wrote the chapter on Hyperthermia in the Oxford Textbook of Oncology, published in 2001. He is currently European editor of the International Journal of Hyperthermia.
In summary, Professor Dahl has dedicated most of his illustrious career in basic, translational and clinical research in the potential uses of hyperthermia to treat cancer. Listed among his publications are some of the most influential in the field. He is very deserving of this award.
Affiliations
Reference
- Mella O, Bjerkvig R, Schem BC, Dahl O, Laerum OD. A cerebral glioma model for experimental therapy and in vivo invasion studies in syngenic BD IX rats. J Neuro-Oncology 1990; 9: 93–104