History of ABC WIN

The foundation of the WIN

During this very early « embryonic » stage, Charles KERBER took the initiative of contacting the few specialists who were developing a reputation, with a view to setting up an informal international working group in the United States, in Santa Barbara, at this time of the annual meeting of the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) held in Los Angeles from March 16 to 3,1 1980.

This first working group had eighteen members:
William BANK, John BENTSON, Alex BERENSTEIN, Jean-Marie CAILLE, Gérard DEBRUN, Douglas GRAEB, Grant HIESHIMA, John HORTON, Charles KERBER, Claude MANELFE, Jean Jacques MERLAND, Jacques MORET, Pierre LASJAUNIAS, Luc PICARD, Jacques PITON, Charles STROTHER, Jaques THERON and Fernando VINUELA.

The idea was to have a Franco-American group, with a balance of nine French members and nine Americans, as for various reasons, INR was developing in both countries. Some members promptly decided to grasp the opportunity of visiting some of the INR departments in North America; there was William BANK in Los Angeles, Alex BERENSTEIN in New York and the team of Gerard DEBRUN, Allan FOX, and Fernando VINUELA in London, Ontario.

The first meeting proved to be a fascinating professional and human experience. For the very time, we were able to have free discussions, with no time limit, covering all the problems encountered in our daily practice, and here we had the possibility of analysing them together.

For us all, this initial experience had been invaluable, and it obviously could not stop there. We promptly decided to hold the same meeting the following year, in Park City (Utah). At the first meeting, in Santa Barbara, there were not enough of us to set up classical scientific society, so the “label” we chose was the “Working Group in interventional Neuroradiology” – WIN. We were determined to maintain total freedom for discussions with no time limits and form the outset did not want it to be a large group. We chose to continue with the same group, allowing members the possibility of proposing a “guest”, provided that the guest was likely to introduce progress-oriented elements. Jean-Marie CAILLE, whose career was not leading him to interventional work, did not continue, but another three American Colleague joined us: Laurence CROMWELL, Paul PEVSNER and Richard LATCHAW.

The second meeting was held in 1981, in Park City (Utah), and there were twenty of us.

The first meetings in Val d’Isère (France)

The group was still determined to keep going, in the course of our discussions in Park City, I had suggested a change of continent, proposing that the third WIN meeting, in 1982, should be held in France, in Val d'Isère. Nineteen of us were there: Grant HIESHIMA, Claude MANELFE and Paul PEVSNER had left, but Axel de KERSAINT-GILLY and Gérard GIUDICELLI had come on board.

To highlight the importance of this first meeting in France, I asked an artist friend, the sculptor André FORFERT to create an original work as a gift for all the participants to commemorate the event. After lengthy discussions and many different proposals, the design selected was a medal depicting the outline of a head, with a balloon catheter in the centre.

Everyone liked both the idea and the medal, so I decided to keep it as a permanent feature. Year after year, André Forfert worked with great enthusiasm and devotion. He had often put his creativity to use for the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology in Nancy, and he gladly continued to devote his art and original ideas to the development of interventional neuroradiology. The medal, which could also be worn as a pendant, was a regular feature of all the annual WIN meetings until the sculptor passed away in 2012. It provides eloquent illustrations of the advances made with our techniques (e.g, coils and stents). A booklet was published on André Forfert and neuroradiology André Forfert et la Neuroradiologie presenting a brief but panoramic review of the artist's work in this field, and a copy was given to all the participants at the 2013 ABC-WIN seminar.
In commemoration of the colleague and friend who supported the WIN for thirty years. Then, until 2014, Christian BURGER was commissioned to design sculptures in a different style, to celebrate the key anniversaries of the WIN.

In 1982 our group was still quite small, and we obviously did not need a large auditorium for our meetings. Indeed, at the time, there was no sponsorship from industry. The venue I had chosen for our meeting in Val d'Isère was the Sofitel hotel which, for various reasons at the time, was ideal. The hotel could accommodate the entire group, which helped establish contact in between working sessions. The Sofitel provided a meeting room free of charge, and had very reasonable rates for full board. On top of that, there was a family atmosphere with the very affable manager, Madame Raymond. All of this obviously played a key role in the decision to continue holding our meetings in Val d'Isère.

The group was perfectly at ease whenever "dangerous" ideas took root in our minds; we even considered that we were duty-bound to share our knowledge with the rest of the world (!), and that meant producing a jointly authored book on interventional neuroradiology, plus the obvious corollary of holding the first international training session on INR.

The different chapters of the book were soon set, but when we tried to allocate the authors, we came up against major difficulties. Everyone thought they were the best person for each and every chapter, which made it a delicate exercise, if not mission impossible.

To avoid conflict, we decided to drop the idea of a jointly authored book and focus our efforts on organising an international training programme which Jacques Moret had offered to organise in Mexico, in Acapulco. Jacques Moret had worked on the plan quite extensively, but for various reasons it never eventuated, and as a result the group fell apart slightly, and we did not meet in 1983.

Given this unfortunate situation. I then suggested that another WIN should be held in Val d'Isère, in 1984, and the proposal was accepted - immediately, unanimously and enthusiastically. So the WIN met again in 1984, in Val d'Isère where it gradually expanded and became a permanent event.

Over the first ten years, from 1980 to 1990, our annual discussions on the future of WIN included our fear of the group becoming too large. There had been no advertising in scientific journals; the slow and gradual increase in the size of the group came through word of mouth. Early on it had been decided that each member of the group was entitled to one guest who had to present a lecture. And so we were able to stand up to outside pressure for almost ten years, but eventually the meeting room at the Sofitel hotel had become too small, so in 1991, we had to use a larger room nearby provided by the municipal council. Then, by 1992 (the year when France hosted the Winter Olympics), there were no standard meeting rooms large enough for us; and in 1992, the building of the Henri Oreiller Conference Centre unfortunately had not been completed. The only interim solution was to "requisition" the local Val d'Isère swimming pool for a week and build a floor over it to create our first large auditorium.

A number of major events in the international history of interventional neuroradiology have occurred in Val d'Isère, one of the most important being the founding of the World Federation of Therapeutic and Interventional Neuroradiology – WFITN.

By January 1990, ten years after the first WIN meeting had been held, the number of participants had gone from 18 to 60, with representatives from every continent. It became obvious that an official and international scientific entity had to be established, and that it would provide a framework for interventional neuroradiology to develop under optimal conditions.

A small group of nine colleagues (Alex BERENSTEIN, Katsuya GOTO, Pierre LASJAUNIAS, Andrew MOLYNEUX, Jacques MORET, Makoto NEGORO, Luc PICARD, Akira TAKAHASHI and Fernando VINUELA), who were all staying at the Sofitel, decided to meet one evening after dinner; it was January 16, 1990. The idea was to discuss whether it was the right moment to set up a scientific society, and if so, what status it should have. The meeting began around 9.30 pm and went on until 4 o'clock the next morning. Opinions were divided and were determined by the original areas of specialisation of the participants and the way their specialties were practised in their respective countries. Some colleagues feared there might be extremely negative reactions from the societies of radiology and neurosurgery.

The discussion of course covered the concept of a "World Federation" as opposed to an "International Society." After six hours of very lively discussion, and in a state of extreme fatigue, the unanimous vote supported the proposal to establish the World Federation of Therapeutic and Interventional Neuroradiology (WFITN).

A few hours later, in the morning of January 17, 1990, an initial General Meeting was held where the 17 participants in attendance voted unanimously endorsing the proposal to establish the WFITN.
The 17 participants thus recognised as the Founding Members were: Alex BERENSTEIN, Jorge CAMPOS, Gérard DEBRUN. Allan FOX, Katsuya GOTO, Brian KENDALL, Axel de KERSAINT-GILLY, Pierre LASJAUNIAS, Andrew MOLYNEUX, Jacques MORET, Makoto NEGORO, Luc PICARD, John SCOTT, Giuseppe SCOTTI, Paul SVENDSEN, Akira TAKAHASHI and Fernando VINUELA. (see page 31 for the signatures of the founding members).

The first executive committee was immediately elected with seven members.
President: Alex BERENSTEIN
Vice-President: Luc PICARD
Treasurer: Andy MOLYNEUX
Secretary: Pierre LASJAUNIAS
Members at large: Jacques MORET, Giuseppe SCOTTI and Fernando VINUELA

Boosted by the initial enthusiasm, the WFITN quickly developed as a property structured entity. The first constitution was drawn up within weeks, setting down the objectives of the WFITN as well as membership requirements. A scientific WFITN meeting would be held on a regular basis, with an elected Chairman being in charge of the organisation. The decision to hold a meeting every two years was only adopted at a second stage.
Anton VALAVANIS was appointed to chair the first Congress which he held in Zurich in 1991, at the same time as the Annual Congress of the European Society of Neuroradiology.

The Chairmanship of the WFITN Executive Committee has always been for the most active members of the ABC-WIN, listed here in chronological order.