Prof. Eric Lim

Professor Eric Lim is a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon at the Royal Brompton Hospital and a Professor of Thoracic Surgery at the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College London. He received his undergraduate medical education at the University of Sheffield Medical School. His specialist heart and lung surgical training was at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge and the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. He spent time in medical research in Cambridge where he was awarded a Doctorate of Medicine and in research methods London where he received his Masters of Science in Medical Statistics funded by a UK Medical Research Council Scholarship. 

He sub-specialises in Thoracic Surgery with specific expertise in lung and chest cancer. His technical expertise is single incision minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery for lung cancer, pleural effusion, pneumothorax and other chest cancers, as well as complex surgery for advanced lung cancer involving airway and blood vessel reconstruction (to save as much normal lung as possible). 

Professor Lim has an active interest in clinical and translational research. He is the Chief Investigator leading UK wide multicentre trials of surgery for mesothelioma (MARS 2) and VATS lobectomy (VIOLET). He is the head of the Biomedical Research Unit Cancer Consortia and leads a team of translational researchers focusing on blood based cancer diagnosis and predictive testing aspiring to shorten time to diagnosis and eliminate complications of conventional invasive tissue biopsy. 

His research has led to over 130 peer reviewed publications, he has authored two award winning textbooks (Medicine and Surgery, Churchill’s Pocketbook of Differential Diagnosis) and 6 book chapters. Professor Lim chaired the British Thoracic Society and Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery’s Guidelines on the Management of Lung Cancer and contributed to multiple international guidelines on the management of lung cancer, predictive testing in thoracic oncology, surgical management of neuroendocrine tumours, standards in thoracic surgery, management of ground glass opacities and pleural diseases. 

He is the Chair of the UK Thoracic Surgery Research Collaborative, Member of the 9th TNM staging committee for lung cancer, Deputy Statistics Editor for the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and previously served as a Councillor of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, a member of the Steering Committee of the British Thoracic Oncology Group and is an Associate Editor of Thorax.