FACULTY OF EUROSON 2024

Solbiati Luigi

Luigi Alessandro Solbiati was born in Busto Arsizio (Milan area) in 1952, graduated cum laude from the University of Milan in 1977 and received his postgraduate degree in Radiology from the School of Radiology of Milan University in 1981. He was resident at the Department of Ultrasound of the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton (UK) with Prof. David Cosgrove in 1981 and at the Department of Medical Physics of the Hospital of Bristol (UK) in 1982. In his clinical activity, he had been working for 35 years at the General Hospital of Busto Arsizio, from the initial role of Assistant to that of Chairman of the Department of Diagnostic Imaging (2002-2011) and Oncology (2012-2015) and Head of the Division of Interventional Oncologic Radiology (2010-2015).
In his academic career, since 1988 he had been appointed as Contract Professor of “Techniques and Methods of Diagnostic Imaging” at the School of Radiology of the University of Milan.
In 2014 he received the Academic Qualification of Full Professor of Radiology. In 2015 he moved to Humanitas University and Humanitas Research Hospital in Milan, where he is currently Professor of Radiology and Consultant of Interventional Radiology, respectively.
He was Board Member of the Italian Society of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (1985-1991), President of the Section of Ultrasound of the Italian Society of Radiology (SIRM) (2006-2010), Member of the Executive Council of European Society of Radiology (ESR) (2008-2010) and Vice-President of SIRM (2008-2010).
His main fields of interest have always been interventional procedures in oncologic and non-oncologic diseases (particularly percutaneous image-guided thermal ablation), imaging of the neck, sonography and contrast enhanced sonography. After being one of the pioneers of ultrasound-guided aspiration biopsies (1979), in 1982 he performed what is considered the very first ablation of a solid tumor ever performed, i.e. the ultrasound-guided percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) of a large inoperable parathyroid adenoma. In 1985 he published the first paper worldwide on PEI of solid tumors (parathyroids).
He was one of the pioneers of PEI of HCCs (1985) together with the group of Dr. Tito Livraghi (Hospital of Vimercate, Milan area). In 1995 he performed the first radiofrequency ablation (RFA) with cool-tip electrodes of an HCC in the world together with Dr. Livraghi and in 1996 the first cool-tip RFA of a hepatic metastases from colorectal carcinoma.
In 2003 he was the first (in Europe) clinical user of percutaneous ablation guided by image fusion of real-time US with CT, MRI or PET-CT.
In 2009 he was one of the first users in the world of high-power microwave ablation (MWA) of solid tumors.
With his team he has one of the largest experiences in the world in RFA and MWA of liver malignancies and renal cell carcinomas (more than 6,000 patients treated). Starting from 2009, he was one of the first users of ablation with laser and radiofrequency of thyroid benign and malignant tumors, and of parathyroid adenomas.
In 2018 he was the first clinical user worldwide of a novel independent software platform for volumetric assessment of ablation completeness (ablation confirmation software), and in 2019 he was the first clinical user of a platform of augmented reality for the guidance of thermal ablation of liver malignancies.