Associate Professor James Thompson is an experienced robotic and minimally-invasive urological surgeon. He graduated from a triple degree in Medicine (Bachelor of Science (Med), Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery) at University of NSW with 1st class honours in 2007. Following 2 years of internship & residency, he completed 6-years of advanced surgical training in urologic surgery via the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) and Urologic Surgeons Association of Australia & New Zealand (USANZ). He also undertook a parallel PhD in prostate cancer research between 2012- 2016.
He then travelled to London for a Royal College of Surgeons UK accredited IMGSS fellowship in robotic prostate and bladder cancer surgery at University College London Hospital (UCLH), the largest pelvic cancer centre in the UK. Upon completing his fellowship, he received the honour of being the first Australian appointed as a consultant surgeon in robotic uro-oncology at UCLH where he continued to perform a high volume of robotic prostate and bladder cancer surgeries.
In 2018, he returned to Sydney to bring home sub-specialised robotic cancer surgery to the Australian community. In addition to general urology, he receives cross referrals from other specialist urologists around NSW to perform complex robotic procedures for prostate, bladder and ureteric conditions, including salvage surgery for recurrence after radiotherapy/ brachytherapy and formation of neobladders after cystectomy. Very few urologists in NSW are trained to perform these rare and complex procedures, hence they are often cross-referred to A/Prof Thompson. For example, A/Prof Thompson performs an average of 15 cystectomies per year for bladder cancer, compared to 0-2 on average for urologists in NSW.
A/Prof Thompson is a Conjoint Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UNSW and a senior research fellow at the Kinghorn Cancer Centre / Garvan Institute of Medical Research. He currently supervises 7 research fellows and students who are undertaking either a PhD, Masters, Honours or clinical research fellowship. He chairs the St George Uro-Oncology Research Group, vice-chairs the Sr Vincent’s Uro-Oncology research group and sits on the executive committees of the APCRC-NSW, NSW PCa Registry, ANZUP Prostate and Bladder Cancer Research Groups, etc.
He is currently undertaking more than 20 research studies across prostate and bladder cancer focussing on novel imaging technologies, risk prediction tools, targeted biopsy techniques, innovative surgical techniques to improve functional and cancer outcomes, genomics, exosomes, pathologic predictors of recurrence, brachytherapy, focal therapy, drug trials, etc. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed publications and textbook chapters, is a reviewer/ editor for the leading international urology journals (BJUI, Eur Urol, J Urol) and is an investigator on several large multicentre clinical trials and academic research grants.
A/Prof Thompson has co-authored over 30 original research publications in addition to book chapters and invited lectures in the field of urologic cancer. He is a regular reviewer for high-impact journals such as European Urology, Lancet Oncology and the Journal of Urology. He is a co-investigator on several ongoing research projects in the fields of MRI, PSMA, Combidex ferromagnetic MRI, active surveillance, focal therapy (including HIFU & nanoknife), robotic surgery, epigenetics & radiogenomics.
