Yves Lazorthes passed away on May 7, 2022, at the age of 84 years. Yves had been born in the city of Toulouse, where he spent most of his life, on October 12, 1938. He achieved his medical degree in 1967, and he started his education in neurosurgery shortly thereafter. In 1979, he became Head of the Department of Neurosurgery in Toulouse, and in 1982, he was appointed Director of the Laboratory of Neurosurgery and Neurobiology at Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. He became Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Toulouse Rangueil in 1989, and Dean in 2004. He retired in 2015 from his academic duties.

Yves had followed the path of his father, the well-known neurosurgeon and anatomist, Guy Lazorthes, who was also Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. He played a major role in the development of innovative pedagogic technics. He created one of the first multidisciplinary pain units in the country, dedicated to the diagnosis and therapy of intractable pain. He also created a research unit on pain and cellular therapy and was recognized by the main research bodies in France INSERM and CNRS for the quality of his research work.

After the first experiences of Shealy in 1968, Yves was collaborating with Robert Sedan on the refinement of spinal cord stimulation as early as in 1972. Together, they published their comprehensive work about therapeutic electrical stimulation in 1978. A major contribution to the field was the 1995 article, published with Jean Siegfried on the bicentric experience with spinal cord stimulation for neuropathic pain over a period of 20 years, providing unique long-term follow-up experience. Another milestone was Yves’ work on the comparison of periventricular gray matter stimulation versus intrathecal morphine application in chronic cancer pain published also with Jean Siegfried in 1983. Together with his group, in particular with Jacqueline Sagen, Yves pioneered the concept of adrenal medullary transplants acting as “cellular minipumps,” in 1986 published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Science. The 1-year survival of the chromaffin cell allografts in cancer patients with chronic pain was reported in 1998 in Cell Transplant, and the results of a prospective phase II trial on human chromaffin cell grafting in the CSF in 2000 in Pain. In the same year, Yves published together with Serge Blond an up-to-date report, The Neurosurgeon and Chronic Pain. Following Tsubokawa’s initial paper, he published his experience with motor cortex stimulation for neuropathic pain in 2007 in Acta Neurochirurgica. With his group, he investigated cortical areas involved in virtual movement of phantom limbs, Neurosurgery, 2003, and studied the correlations between pain relief and functional imaging changes, Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, 2001. After the introduction of DBS in the posterior hypothalamus for severe chronic cluster headache, he reported, together with several French colleagues, the results of a multicenter randomized placebo-controlled double-blind trial, establishing the safety and efficacy of this technique, J Headache Pain, 2010. He also demonstrated that DBS in the subthalamic nucleus had an effect on pain in Parkinson disease with an increasing pain threshold and a modulatory effect on the lateral discriminative pain system. His multifold contributions to the field of neuromodulation for pain will remain major milestones in the history of functional neurosurgery.

Yves worked hard to establish a radiosurgery unit – in spite of numerous local obstacles and resistances and finally created a Gamma Knife center in Toulouse in October 2017. He was deeply involved in the scientific life of the European Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery (ESSFN) for decades. He became an active member in 1978 and served as Treasurer for two terms since 1998 and as President from 2006 till 2010. He hosted the very successful XVth ESSFN congress in Toulouse in 2002. And in 2005, he organized together with the board of the ESSFN, an outstanding hands-on course on surgery for severe chronic pain. Yves established also the format of the Training charters for Functional Neurosurgery, dedicated to secure quality standards in various fields of functional neurosurgery, published in Acta Neurochirurgica.

He was the winner of the AANS international abstract award at the 2008 meeting in Chicago, organized by Konstantin Slavin, for his work on posterior hypothalamus stimulation for chronic cluster headache. He received in 2017, on the occasion of the WSSFN congress, organized in Berlin by Joachim Krauss, the prestigious Spiegel & Wycis award, sharing the honor with other great pioneers of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery including Leksell, Riechert, Talairach, Velasco Suarez, Narabayashi, Tasker, Laitinen, Benabid, and others.

Yves was always a gentleman – very well educated, always elegant, loyal, and friendly. He had numerous friends in our community in the ESSFN and WSSFN. Hedonistic and convivial, he was a shining personality in all social events of our scientific societies. He spent his last years with his wife Marie, traveling between Toulouse, Marrakech, and Spain. He was always very discrete on his health condition. He was an “honnête homme” according to the XVII century French definition.

Yves was a visionary with an open mind, animated by a ceaseless curiosity, capable to be a clinician and a researcher at the same time, always keen to develop and adapt the latest technological innovations to functional neurosurgery. He believed in the importance of multi-disciplinarity and collaborated with numerous researchers of different scientific background from private and public institutions. He was a mentor deeply concerned with the education and promotion of his fellows, and he gave them the opportunity to use his connections with the greatest centers and greatest names around the world. Always at the interface between clinical practice and research, he is representing a role model for young generations.

The functional neurosurgery community has lost a great clinician researcher and humanist character. Yves, you will not be forgotten – we will miss you forever.

Written permission was obtained from the next of kin of Dr. Lazorthes for publication of his picture.

Jean Régis wrote the initial manuscript. Joachim Krauss and Serge Blond reviewed it and performed significant additions and corrections.

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