Prof. Dr. Saim Yılmaz was born in Antalya in 1962. After completing his primary, secondary and high school education in Antalya, he entered Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine in 1979 and graduated in 1985. After graduation, he worked in Istanbul for two years as a general practitioner and then for two years as a pediatrics resident. In 1988, he began his radiology residency at Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine; he became a specialist in 1992, an assistant professor in 1994, an associate professor in 1998 and a professor in 2004.
Since 1992, he has worked exclusively in interventional radiology, which provides image-guided minimally invasive treatments. He has visited leading centers in the USA and Europe, attended more than 100 congresses and symposia, published more than 70 scientific articles that have received more than 600 citations, given more than 100 scientific presentations and more than 50 invited lectures, and received 7 scientific awards. An article he published in 1988 became the 5th most cited radiology article in Europe and the 3rd most cited in Türkiye.
In the minimally invasive treatment of peripheral arterial disease, he was the first in Türkiye to perform subintimal angioplasty and transpopliteal angioplasty. In 2003, he performed the first endovenous laser ablation (EVLA) in Türkiye, and also introduced ultrasound-guided miniphlebectomy, foam sclerotherapy, and femoral and sciatic nerve blocks to the country. Since 2005, he has performed uterine fibroid embolization (UFE), and he was the first in Türkiye to perform a superior hypogastric nerve block for pain control after UFE.
In 2011, at Antalya Memorial & Medstar Hospitals, he focused with the oncology team on tumor ablation (radiofrequency, microwave, NanoKnife, cryoablation) and transarterial treatments (chemoembolization, radioembolization). He was the first physician in Türkiye to use NanoKnife in pancreatic cancer and cryoablation in lung, pancreatic and soft-tissue tumors. In 2018, he founded Varisson Radiology Centers in Antalya and Istanbul. He speaks English, French and German.