In memoriam Prof. Paolo Biassoni (1929-2015).

Abstract

Professor Paolo Biassoni was a pioneer of Italian nuclear medicine. Hewas based at the University of Genoa, Italy, where he studied medicine and where he worked all his life. He and other colleagues were the backbone of the Radioisotopes Unit of the Department of Internal Medicine, which was opened in the early 1950s and which he joined in 1954, immediately after qualifying as a medical doctor. The unit was one of the first groups in Italy to use I-131 in the treatment of thyrotoxicosis. Biassoni did his MD thesis studying thyroid uptake of radioiodine in rats. Through this work, he developed a special interest for nuclear medicine, which was to stay with him for the rest of his life. Although nuclear medicine shaped his professional life, especially toward the end, he considered himself first of all a general physician, with a special interest in thyroid diseases, and inculcated in his students the critical importance of interpreting the nuclear medicine investigations in the global clinical context of the patient. He was appointed assistant general physician to the Department of Internal Medicine at the University Hospital of Genoa in 1964. In 1971 he was promoted to the position of deputy chief. In 1984 he became head of the Nuclear Medicine Unit of the University Hospital in Genoa. He worked in that capacity until 1995, when he retired from the National Health Service. In the mid-1980s he had been appointed a member of the Executive Committee of the former BItalian Society of Nuclear Biology and Medicine^ (now BItalian Association of Nuclear Medicine^), where he served for a term, helping to steer the evolution of the society toward its current version in a time when the two components of nuclear medicine (nuclear physicians coming from general medicine versus physicians with a more prominent radiological background) were engaged in hot debate. Professor Giuliano Mariani, who was at the time the secretary of the association, is a witness to the balance and long-term vision that Biassoni showed in his interventions at the society’s meetings. Years later, Mariani had another opportunity to interact closely with Biassoni when, in 1994, he moved to Genoa to work in the Nuclear Medicine Department of the University Hospital. The following year, after Biassoni’s retirement, he replaced him as head of the Nuclear Medicine Department. Biassoni also held a university appointment as Associate Professor of Nuclear Medicine and was director of the specialist training programme in nuclear medicine at the University of Genoa for some years. During his postgraduate training, he had obtained the title of specialist * Lorenzo Biassoni Lorenzo.Biassoni@gosh.nhs.uk