Interview with Professor Frédéric Clarençon: 3D Printing and Interventional Neuroradiology

Professor Clarençon is an interventional neuroradiologist and Head of the Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital Department of Interventional Neuroradiology in Paris. He is a specialist of intracranial aneurysms, brain AVMS and fistulas, as well as spinal vascular malformations, mechanical thrombectomy and percutaneous spine intervention. Pr. Clarençon’s doctoral thesis was on advanced imaging techniques for brain arteriovenous malformations. He will be presenting at the event in Paris on Nov 21st, 2017.
 
 
 
 
Jenny: What inspired you to use 3D printing?
Clarençon: The 3D printing represents for me a leap forward in the management of our patients. 3D printing may also be very useful to teach our residents and fellows. The leitmotiv nowadays for the resident is “Never the first time on a patient”.
Jenny: What is the biggest motivation for your work?
Clarençon: To cure patients of their severe cerebrovascular diseases with a low complication rate.
Jenny: What is the biggest challenge in your work?
Clarençon: To improve the safety of our treatments
Jenny: How do you plan to conquer this challenge?
Clarençon: The use of flow model obtained via the 3D printing technology may be a new way to better plan the strategy of our treatments.
Jenny: What is your vision on the potential impact of your current work to the future of medicine?
Clarençon: I am working mainly on tools to better analyze the angioarchitecture of brain AVMs, and on new paradigms for the treatment of these aggressive vascular lesions. The goal is to reduce the complication of the curative treatment of this disease.
Jenny: What is the biggest change/improvement since last year this time?
Clarençon: In my field, the flow diverter stents for the treatment of an intracranial aneurysm are a paradigm shift. The recent evidence on the effectiveness of mechanical thrombectomy in acute ischemic stroke with large vessel occlusion is also a big change in our specialty.
Jenny: What are you passionate about?
Clarençon: Neurosciences and literature.
Jenny: What is the biggest risk you took in your career?
Clarençon: We take risks every day, because our endovascular techniques are at risk of severe complications, even if they rarely occur.
Jenny: What do you enjoy in your spare time?
Clarençon: I have almost no spare time (…). I enjoy Paris with my wife (art exhibits, theatre plays, opera …).