General Info

Ithaar Derweesh, MD, is a board-certified urologist who subspecializes in urologic tumors and malignancies. He leads the surgical arm of UC San Diego Healths multidisciplinary program for management of kidney cancer. Dr. Derweesh has established one of the highest volume kidney cancer surgical programs in North America. He offers an innovative approach to personalized treatment of kidney cancer for localized, locally advanced, and advanced disease, and has had several published first reports for surgical innovation and targeted therapies for disease. He is one of the worlds leading experts for partial nephrectomy for large renal masses, use of minimally invasive surgery in setting of locally advanced disease, and the use of targeted medication to enable kidney preserving treatments in settings where such treatment was not possible. In these endeavors, Dr. Derweesh has partnered with colleagues from medical oncology to create innovative and leading-edge treatment for kidney cancer patients. In addition, he co-leads the interdisciplinary management treatment team for ablation of kidney masses with interventional radiologists.Dr. Derweeshs research interests mirror those of his clinical practice. His established track record of surgical innovation include development of novel strategies for kidney preserving treatment and development of tumor markers for diagnosis and monitoring of kidney tumors and kidney function, and development of predictive models for kidney cancer treatment. Dr. Derweesh has more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and has served on the American Urological Associations guideline panels for management of clinical T1 kidney mass follow-up of localized kidney tumors and management of localized kidney cancer, as well as the National Comprehensive Cancer Networks kidney and testicular cancer guideline panels. Additionally, Dr. Derweesh serves as an associate editor for The Journal of Urology and on the editorial boards for BJU International and Frontiers in Oncology.Before joining UC San Diego Health, Dr. Derweesh served as Chief of Urology at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, and was residency program director of University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. He also served as attending physician at the Cleveland Clinic, and clinical instructor at Yale University School of Medicine.Dr. Derweesh completed fellowship training at the Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and residency training in urology at Yale University School of Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital. He received his medical degree from the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. He is board-certified in urology.Dr. Derweesh is a member of numerous medical organizations, including the American Urological Association, Society of Academic Urologists, Society of Urologic Oncology, European Association of Urology, Endourological Society, and Societe Internationale dUrologie. UC San Diego Health LinksFor more information, see http://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/surgery/urology/Pages/default.aspx and https://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/cancer/programs/urologic/Pages/default.aspx.