Distinguished Fellows

Fabrizio Fanelli graduated cum laude in Medicine at the University of  Rome “Sapienza” in 1995 and completed his residency in Imaging Sciences at the same institution in 2000, graduating cum laude.

Under the mentorship of Prof. Plinio Rossi, he developed a strong interest in vascular and interventional radiology, which led him to pursue international clinical training. In 2000, he attended as a Visiting Resident the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Department at Stanford University under the mentorship of Prof. Michael Dake. In 2004, he further expanded his international experience through the Visitor Program at the Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute led by Prof. Barry Katzen.

He obtained the European Board of Interventional Radiology-EBIR certification in 2010 and, in 2014, achieved the academic qualification as full professor of radiology.

Prof. Fanelli has combined extensive clinical practice with a strong commitment to education and research throughout his career. From 2001 to 2017, he served as Consultant in the Vascular and Interventional Radiology Unit at the Sapienza-University Hospital in Rome, where in 2010 he obtained a highly specialized professional appointment recognizing his expertise in advanced endovascular procedures.

Between October 2013 and February 2014, he worked as “Oberarzt 1” in the Department of Clinical and Interventional Angiology at Inselspital-University Hospital in Bern. Since September 2017 he is Director of Vascular and Interventional Radiology Department at “Careggi” University Hospital in Florence.

During his career he has performed more than 85,000 interventional procedures, including vascular and non-vascular interventions in election and emergency. His clinical activity focuses primarily on endovascular treatment of complex vascular diseases, peripheral arterial disease, aortic pathologies, embolization, biliary interventions, AV-malformations and TIPS.

Alongside his clinical activity, he has been deeply involved in postgraduate education and international training. He has served as teaching professor in more than 150 training courses and has been actively involved in hands-on education and simulator-based training programs.

From 2008 to 2017, he served as teaching professor of Interventional Radiology at the School of Radiology of the University of Rome “Sapienza”, and from 2010 to 2018, he also contributed to the PhD program in Angio-Cardiac-Thoracic Surgical Physiopathology and Imaging. Since 2017, he is a teaching professor of Interventional Radiology in the Radiology Residency Program at the University of Florence.

He has also conducted numerous international proctorship and educational programs, including training initiatives in the United States, Korea, Japan, China, Australia, etc. focusing on advanced endovascular technologies such as carotid stenting, drug-eluting devices, liquid embolic agents, and aortic treatment.

Prof. Fanelli’s research activity has focused on the development and clinical evaluation of innovative technologies and devices. Since 2000, he has participated in numerous international multicenter trials and registries evaluating different new devices and techniques. He has served in multiple roles including principal investigator, trial designer, and steering committee member. His work has contributed to several landmark studies investigating technologies for peripheral arterial disease, abdominal aortic aneurysms, biliary interventions, and embolization therapies.

His scientific production includes 166 peer-reviewed publications, with an H-index of 40 and  5.445 citations. He has delivered over 600 invited lectures and presentations at international congresses. He is also the author of three specialized books and co-author to 18 additional books in radiology and interventional sciences.

Prof. Fanelli serves on the editorial boards of several major journals in the field, including Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology and the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, where he served as Associate Editor from 2018 to 2026. He was also involved in educational and editorial initiatives of the European Society of Radiology.

He has held numerous leadership roles within major international scientific societies, particularly within the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE). Over the years he has served as member of the CIRSE Executive Committee, Chairman of the Standards of Practice Committee, and Chairman of the Program Committee of the CIRSE Annual Congress. He also introduced the first IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Endovascular Aortic Symposium). He has also been actively involved in the European Congress of Radiology scientific committees and in other initiatives focused on radiation protection and patient information. He founded the International Multidisciplinary Endovascular Forum (IM Endo Forum) in 2023, an annual event fostering interdisciplinary discussion among experts on endovascular techniques and innovations.

Hendrik (Hans) van Overhagen was born in Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1959, one of two children (elder loving sister Mei Ying) out of a Dutch father and a Chinese mother from a family with many medical doctors.  He went to study law for one year, and even though he liked criminal law, he switched to medicine at the University of Leiden. He became a resident in radiology at the University Hospital Dijkzigt in Rotterdam and was subsequently asked by Professor Han Laméris to become a staff member specializing in ultrasound and interventional radiology. In 1993, he finished his thesis on “radiological staging of esophageal and gastroesophageal cancer”. He moved to the Leyenburg teaching hospital in the Hague in 1998, where he has been practicing interventional radiology until recently.

During his stay in the Hague, Hans was program director for radiological residents and for fellows in interventional radiology. In addition, he was a member of the scientific committee of the hospital for many years. He has been active in the Netherlands Society of Radiology as secretary and chairman of the educational committee and has been a member of the “Concilium radiologicum”. For ten years, he (secretary) and Professor Jim Reekers (chairman) were the Board of the Netherlands Society for Interventional Radiology.

In June 1994, he visited his first CIRSE Annual Congress in Crete and has been a CIRSE enthusiast ever since. He has been a member of the Scientific Programme Committee for four years, the Standards of Practice Committee, and the ESIR online committee. He has hosted two ESIR stroke intervention courses in The Hague and was chairman of the Task Force Stroke committee of CIRSE. In addition, he has been an instructor and coordinator for several hands-on CIRSE workshops and has presented numerous (invited) papers at annual conferences.

Hans was co-founder of the annual interventional radiology conference (RIDN) in the Netherlands in 2000 and was a member of the scientific committee of the Netherlands radiology days and the Netherlands vascular days.

He was the initiator and PI of the PADI (Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty versus drug-eluting stents for infra-popliteal lesions in critical limb ischemia) trial, which he published together with Professor Willem Mali. He was European PI of the SAVAL (the drug-eluting stents below the knee vascular stent system vs PTA in subjects with critical limb ischemia) trial and initiator and PI of the Puccini (percutaneous closure device controlled incraft stentgraft implantation registry) trial. He has published more than 100 papers (PubMed), including vascular (CLI, EVT in stroke, EVAR, acute mesenteric ischemia, fibroid embolization) and non-vascular (percutaneous jejunostomy, JJ ureter implantation, peripheral & central venous lines) topics.

In 2023, he became a mediator and, in March this year, joined the “neighborhood mediation in The Hague”. He has two children, Katrine and Rasmus, whom he loves profoundly and is very proud of, and is immensely happy with Carina, his love and soulmate, with whom he walked the Camino de Santiago Compostela. His favourite hobby is travelling, during which he tries to speak Dutch, English, Italian, and Danish. In addition, he is a PADI open water diver and has two racing bikes. He claims “it is a constant battle to stay in shape”.