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Professor Diederik Bulters

Professor Bulters is a neurosurgeon with a sub-specialty interest in vascular neurosurgery.

Training and education

  • MBChB and intercalated BSc in pharmacology, University of Edinburgh
  • Basic surgical training, University of Edinburgh
  • Specialist neurosurgical training, Wessex
  • Fellowship in neurovascular surgery, Cambridge

Experience

Professor Bulters is a consultant neurosurgeon specialising in neurovascular neurosurgery (treating conditions of the blood vessels in the brain and spine). He currently performs the largest number of neurovascular operations in the UK annually including those for:

  • Aneurysms (swelling in a blood vessel caused by weakness in the blood vessel wall)
  • Arteriovenous malformations (tangles of abnormal blood vessels forming connections between arteries and veins)
  • Dural arteriovenous fistulas (abnormal direct connections between an artery and a vein).
  • Cavernomas (small clusters of abnormal blood vessels)

Professor Bulters also provides all services for cerebral bypass (an operation to reroute blood around a damaged artery, preventing a stroke in patients with abnormal blood vessels and Moya Moya disease) in the South.

Key achievements

  • President of the British Neurovascular Group
  • Neurosurgery lead for NHS England South Eastern region
  • Society of British Neurological Surgeons Research Committee member
  • Associate editor of the British Journal of Neurosurgery

Research

Professor Bulters has an active research interest in vascular neurosurgery and publishes the largest number of scientific articles in this field annually in the UK. His group’s two main themes relate improving risk prediction and treatment for patients with vascular lesions (cerebral aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations and dural AV fistulae), and reducing the injury to the brain from blood to improve outcomes from intracranial and subarachnoid haemorrhage.

He holds grants from the NIHR, EPSRC, Innovate UK, MRC, European Union, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Wessex Medical Research and Smile for Wessex. He has extensive experience collaborating with Industrial partners to bring new treatments to clinical trials and has been the chief and principal investigator for a large portfolio of randomised trials examining new ways to improve outcomes for patients with aneurysms and intracranial haemorrhage, utilising new drug interventions, cell therapies and surgical techniques.