Professor Galina Velikova

Profile

Professor Velikova is a Consultant in Medical Oncology and a Professor at the University of Leeds. Professor Velikova graduated from the Medical Institute, Varna, Bulgaria in 1986.  She obtained a certificate for a general speciality in Internal Medicine in Bulgaria in 1994 then moved to the UK and completed specialist training in Medical Oncology in 2001.  She obtained a PhD from the University of Leeds 2001 for a research degree project “Quality of life measurement in daily oncology practice”. Since 2003, she is a Professor of Psychosocial and Medical Oncology.

Professor Velikova’s clinical work focuses on the systemic treatment of breast cancer patients with early and advanced disease, including chemotherapy, endocrine therapy and targeted treatments.

Professor Velikova leads a clinical research group in Leeds Institute for medical Research@St James’s to study the implementation of routine measurement of patient-reported outcomes and quality of life in oncology practice.  With programmatic funding from the National Institute for Health Research of England, Prof Velikova researches the use of online patient self-reporting of adverse events during and after treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The self-reported adverse events are integrated and displayed within the Electronic Patient Records to support immediate patient care. This work was recognised in 2014 by The Times Higher Education as one of “20 new ideas from UK universities that will change the world”.  

Professor Velikova leads the quality of life sub-studies of national and international clinical trials in breast cancer, including TACT2 and SUPREMO.  Nationally, she is the academic lead of the NHS Quality of Life metric initiative, aiming to implement routine quality of life measurement for cancer patients and survivors after treatment as a tool to drive care quality improvements.

Professor Velikova has a number of national and international leadership roles. She is past chair the British Psychosocial Oncology Society (BPOS) and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group in addition to being the past president of the International Society for Quality of Life Research. Prof Velikova currently chairs the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Psychosocial Oncology and Survivorship Clinical Studies Group. She is an elected Board member the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).

Research interests

For an updated list of projects, please see here.

Qualifications

• Medical doctor -BMBS
• PhD
• Specialty Registration Medical Oncology

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians
• Associaiton of Cancer physicians
• British Psychosocial Oncology Society
• EORTC Quality of Life Group
• ISOQOL International Society for Quality of Life Research

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Medical Research at St James's
• Cancer
• Complex interventions
• Long-term conditions
• Patient Centred Outcomes

Current postgraduate researchers

• Kathleen Kane