We should evaluate medical interventions based on their real health benefits
Inaugural lecture
More treatment is not always better. Professor Gerrit-Jan Liefers (surgery) explores how we can make healthcare more effective by critically examining what treatments actually achieve for patients. Together with his team, he researches cancer treatment and overtreatment.
What is the main message of your inaugural lecture and why did you choose it?
‘The main message is that we should assess medical treatments based on their actual, measurable health benefits. All too often, modest results from new treatments are presented as major breakthroughs, understandably driven by financial and academic interests. This reinforces the therapeutic illusion: the belief that more treatment is always better. At the same time, it contributes to an unnecessary rise in healthcare costs. I think it’s important to examine this critically.’
What key research areas are you and your team working on?
‘We conduct research into clinical questions affecting specific patient groups, such as older people with cancer. In breast cancer, for example, we carried out a national study of omitting radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery. In bowel cancer, we conducted an international study on the value of aspirin as a cancer treatment.
‘We also aim to link laboratory research to these studies. Through tissue research, fore example, we want to identify characteristics that can predict how a disease will develop and which treatment will work best. This helps us tailor treatments to individual patients.’
What role do teaching and patient care play in your vision of this field?
‘A very important one. By teaching medical students early on about the mechanisms, taboos and interests associated with overtreatment, I hope we can reduce it. It’s also important for specialist training to address the limits of continued treatment. When is further treatment worthwhile, and when is it not? Answering that takes excellent communication with patients. That is something that has to be learned and taught.’
Is there anything from recent years that has really stayed with you?
‘How important words are for patients and their families. Nothing frustrates patients more than the feeling that different specialists are telling different stories. Words matter. We need to remain aware of that as healthcare professionals.’
How will your work affect patients and society?
‘I hope that our research into effective healthcare will enable us to regularly join the public debate, whether in newspapers, on the radio or on the TV. It’s important that the knowledge generated by our research doesn’t remain within hospitals or academia but also reaches society as a whole.’
Where do you hope the field will be in 10 to 15 years?
‘The guiding principle of clinical research should always be to achieve health benefits for relevant patient populations. This takes perseverance and consistent research programmes that deliver progress step by step. I hope this can become one of the key themes on the LUMC’s academic agenda. As a university medical centre close to the administrative heart of the Netherlands and with a campus in The Hague, we are uniquely positioned to play a leading academic role in the debate on effective healthcare.
‘Political decision-making will need to be guided by the pursuit of a sustainable healthcare system. Perhaps we will be among the first to take a step back from the prevailing hypes for technology and innovation. Ultimately, the academic debate we need to have is about taboos and interests. Which forms of healthcare genuinely benefit patients? And when should we have the courage to say that more treatment is not always better?’
Gerrit-Jan Liefers’ inaugural lecture ‘De Therapeutische Illusie’ (The Therapeutic Illusion) will be held on Friday 18 September 2026 from 16.00 to 17.00 and can be watched via de livestream.
Source: LUMC