Luigi Manfrè gained his MD in 1989 and then completed
his specialization in Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology in 1993. He
worked as a researcher at Palermo University from 1993 to 2001, and then as an
Interventional Neuroradiologist at Cannizzaro Hospital in Catania, Italy. He is
currently Head of the Minimally Invasive Spine Therapy Unit at Cannizzaro
Hospital. His main interests are percutaneous minimally invasive spine surgery
using X-ray and CT-guided techniques with only local anesthesia. He has
personally performed more than 3000 procedures in this field since 1999,
including procedures using third-generation interspinous spacers, the full
range of augmentation procedures for the spine (vertebro/kypho/vesselplasty and
vertebral stent), posterior trans and intraarticular fusion, radio and
cryoablation of tumors and facets, and percutaneous discectomy. Dr. Manfrè was one of the founding members of the European
Vertebroplasty Research Team (EVEREST) in 2004 and has won 16 international and
national prizes. He
won the "best paper of the year" prize from the American Society of
Spine Radiology in 2007, 2009, and 2012. He has published more than 200 papers and with Springer he has previously
published Spinal Imaging (in 2007), Interventional
Neuroradiology of the Spine (in 2013), and Imaging Spine After Treatment
(also in 2013).