- Email: [email protected]
Pierre Lasjaunias
Obituary
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration
Pierre Lasjaunias Anatomist and interventional neuroradiologist who perfected techniques to treat vein of Galen malformations. Born in Paris, France, on July 15, 1948, he died from a heart attack on July 1, 2008, in Zurich, Switzerland, aged 59 years. The premature death of Pierre Lasjaunias, head of Neurosciences at Bicêtre Hospital in Paris, France, stunned not only his colleagues, but also many of the young patients whose lives he saved in infancy. “I am 12 years old and Prof Lasjaunias helped me so much by embolising my vein of Galen malformation on five different occasions. It is a great loss to the world and he will never be forgotten in my life”, one patient wrote. On the same website, the parent of another infant patient remembered his skill and compassion: “We then had the incredible fortune to be able to benefit from Professor Lasjaunias’ skills, knowledge, and humanity.” The vein of Galen malformation, an abnormality in which arteries communicate directly with the deep venous system in the brain, leads to congestive heart failure in infants. The defect is sometimes recognised on antenatal ultrasound but is most often seen in newborn babies and infants who experience rapid heart failure. Lasjaunias is perhaps most famous for perfecting a minimally invasive, image-guided treatment for the condition, in which cyanoacrylate glue is injected through a microcatheter to close the shunt. More widely, however, he was admired for his remarkable ability to comprehend vascular physiology and pathology in four dimensions, says his long-time collaborator Alejandro Berenstein, Director of the Hyman-Newman Institute for 1380
Neurology and Neurosurgery, Beth-Israel Medical Centre, New York, USA. “He was the man with the map of the human vascular system. Pierre was one of a kind.” Lasjaunias studied medicine in Paris and began his professional life as an anatomist specialising in the development of the vasculature of head and neck. In 1975, he was drawn to the field of imaging, and began studying angiography, where catheters are guided into arterial systems to study blood flow. In 1983, he received a PhD in anatomy and a specialist qualification in radiology and 6 years later was appointed professor of anatomy at the University of Paris Sud, and Hôpital Kremlin Bicêtre, where he began treating patients with vascular abnormalities. As a clinician, he combined outstanding manual dexterity with a brilliant mind to “create daily ‘masterpieces’ for patients from around the world”, said professor Serge Bonin, head of the faculty of medicine at University Paris Sud. As a teacher, Lasjaunias was demanding and inspiring, charming and erudite. “He had an ability to really captivate people who wanted to learn”, Berenstein explains. Throughout his career Lasjaunias was also involved in collaborations in hospitals in London, Berlin, New York, Toronto, and elsewhere. His work in Thailand, for example, resulted in his being presented with the Royal Noble Order of Thailand in 1998. His expertise was widely called upon, and in 2003, for example, he developed three-dimensional models of the circulatory systems of the Iranian craniopagus conjoined twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani before their attempted (and ultimately unsuccessful) surgical separation in Singapore. Lasjaunias was the co-author, with Berenstein and Karel ter Brugge, of Toronto Western Hospital, of the seminal fivevolume text, Surgical Neuroangiography. He also published more than 300 scientific papers and many other chapters and books. On an international level, he was active in pursuing the development of his discipline and was the driving force behind an international masters degree in neurovascular diseases taught at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. He was elected president of the World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology in 2007, on which occasion he wrote about the role of the organisation and the challenges facing his discipline: “Knowledge in science and progress depends on several principles combining experience over time, accumulated through intuition, assessment, postulates and techniques”. “Having had the fortune to interact with Pierre for over 30 years and 11 books, I became a better doctor and a better human”, Berenstein said. “Pierre was more than a fantastic anatomist, physician, scientist, and humanist, but he was a most complete person, he was a thinker, a philosopher, a true renaissance man.” Lasjaunias is survived by his wife, Pascale, and three daughters.
Stephen Pincock [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 372 October 18, 2008
The printed journal includes an image merely for illustration
Pierre Lasjaunias Anatomist and interventional neuroradiologist who perfected techniques to treat vein of Galen malformations. Born in Paris, France, on July 15, 1948, he died from a heart attack on July 1, 2008, in Zurich, Switzerland, aged 59 years. The premature death of Pierre Lasjaunias, head of Neurosciences at Bicêtre Hospital in Paris, France, stunned not only his colleagues, but also many of the young patients whose lives he saved in infancy. “I am 12 years old and Prof Lasjaunias helped me so much by embolising my vein of Galen malformation on five different occasions. It is a great loss to the world and he will never be forgotten in my life”, one patient wrote. On the same website, the parent of another infant patient remembered his skill and compassion: “We then had the incredible fortune to be able to benefit from Professor Lasjaunias’ skills, knowledge, and humanity.” The vein of Galen malformation, an abnormality in which arteries communicate directly with the deep venous system in the brain, leads to congestive heart failure in infants. The defect is sometimes recognised on antenatal ultrasound but is most often seen in newborn babies and infants who experience rapid heart failure. Lasjaunias is perhaps most famous for perfecting a minimally invasive, image-guided treatment for the condition, in which cyanoacrylate glue is injected through a microcatheter to close the shunt. More widely, however, he was admired for his remarkable ability to comprehend vascular physiology and pathology in four dimensions, says his long-time collaborator Alejandro Berenstein, Director of the Hyman-Newman Institute for 1380
Neurology and Neurosurgery, Beth-Israel Medical Centre, New York, USA. “He was the man with the map of the human vascular system. Pierre was one of a kind.” Lasjaunias studied medicine in Paris and began his professional life as an anatomist specialising in the development of the vasculature of head and neck. In 1975, he was drawn to the field of imaging, and began studying angiography, where catheters are guided into arterial systems to study blood flow. In 1983, he received a PhD in anatomy and a specialist qualification in radiology and 6 years later was appointed professor of anatomy at the University of Paris Sud, and Hôpital Kremlin Bicêtre, where he began treating patients with vascular abnormalities. As a clinician, he combined outstanding manual dexterity with a brilliant mind to “create daily ‘masterpieces’ for patients from around the world”, said professor Serge Bonin, head of the faculty of medicine at University Paris Sud. As a teacher, Lasjaunias was demanding and inspiring, charming and erudite. “He had an ability to really captivate people who wanted to learn”, Berenstein explains. Throughout his career Lasjaunias was also involved in collaborations in hospitals in London, Berlin, New York, Toronto, and elsewhere. His work in Thailand, for example, resulted in his being presented with the Royal Noble Order of Thailand in 1998. His expertise was widely called upon, and in 2003, for example, he developed three-dimensional models of the circulatory systems of the Iranian craniopagus conjoined twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani before their attempted (and ultimately unsuccessful) surgical separation in Singapore. Lasjaunias was the co-author, with Berenstein and Karel ter Brugge, of Toronto Western Hospital, of the seminal fivevolume text, Surgical Neuroangiography. He also published more than 300 scientific papers and many other chapters and books. On an international level, he was active in pursuing the development of his discipline and was the driving force behind an international masters degree in neurovascular diseases taught at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. He was elected president of the World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology in 2007, on which occasion he wrote about the role of the organisation and the challenges facing his discipline: “Knowledge in science and progress depends on several principles combining experience over time, accumulated through intuition, assessment, postulates and techniques”. “Having had the fortune to interact with Pierre for over 30 years and 11 books, I became a better doctor and a better human”, Berenstein said. “Pierre was more than a fantastic anatomist, physician, scientist, and humanist, but he was a most complete person, he was a thinker, a philosopher, a true renaissance man.” Lasjaunias is survived by his wife, Pascale, and three daughters.
Stephen Pincock [email protected]
www.thelancet.com Vol 372 October 18, 2008