SIR Today

The Gold Medal, SIR’s highest honor, is awarded not only for extraordinary service to the Society but to those who have dedicated their past and present talents to advancing the quality of medicine and patient care through the practice of interventional radiology.

The Gold Medal presentations will take place on Sunday, April 12, during the Opening Plenary Session at 10:30 a.m.

Professor Thierry Jacques de Baère, MD, was head of the interventional radiology unit at Institut Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in Villejuif, France, where he worked since 1991.

Professor de Baère’s clinical work was dedicated to minimal invasive therapy for treatment of liver, lung and kidney tumors, including intra-arterial therapies for primary and secondary liver tumors, and percutaneous ablation of liver tumors and lung tumors. Professor de Baère and his team also pioneered and investigated preoperative portal vein embolization to hypertrophy unembolized parts of the liver.

He was the author of over 450 peer-reviewed articles, resulting in over 35,000 citations. He was a reviewer for many cancer and interventional radiology journals and was a CardioVascular and Interventional Radiology section editor of for interventional oncology from 2016–2022.

Professor de Baère was a member of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). He co-authored guidelines on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and colorectal liver metastases with ESMO, European Association for the Study of the Liver, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, and CIRSE. He was principal investigator of several international studies on ablation, intra-arterial therapies, combined therapies and other innovative locoregional treatments.

An active member of ESMO and CIRSE, Professor de Baère served on scientific program committees for several important global I-R meetings and was a member of the CIRSE Foundation Advisory Council and board for several years. His contributions were many — and his impact on colleagues and patients alike will endure.

Professor de Baère is being awarded the SIR Gold Medal posthumously. It will be accepted on his behalf by Afshin Gangi, MD, PhD, and Tamara Sals.

Before his passing, Professor de Baère shared a person, place and thing that kept his passion for IR alive.

Who inspired me

My mentors:

• Daniel Vanel, MD, diagnostic radiologist

• Dominique Elias, MD, PhD, liver surgeon

My French friends and coworkers:

• Afshin Gangi, MD, PhD

• Jean Palussiére, MD, PhD

The superstars that published in high-end oncology journals:

• Riad Salem, MD, MBA, FSIR

• Martijn R. Meijerink, MD, PhD

The best colleagues you can imagine, who are bright, gentle and without ego:

• Frederic Deschamps, MD

• Lambros Tselikas, MD

• Baptiste Bonnet, MD

What inspired me

• Putting a smile on a patient’s face

• Exploring new treatments and trying out new toys

• Sharing ideas with EU or U.S. colleagues

Where I was inspired

• The Institut Gustave Roussy: a hospital, a research center and my home. It is somewhere you can push forward any good research idea.

• International IR meetings: CIRSE, SIO and SIR, where ideas and friendships are formed.