It was intended to recognize the spirit of the founder of the journal and, in the same time, the scientific curiosity and investigation ability which should characterize the neurosurgeon. Such qualities obvious belonged to the previous winners of the award, namely Francesco Sala (2002), Vassilios I Vougioukas (2003), Yuichiro Nonaka (2004), Seok-gu Kang (2005) and Daniela Ierardi (2007). The same qualities can be observed in the papers by the current winner Anthony Figaji.

Dr. Figaji developed a very active program at the Red Cross Childrens Hospital in Capetown to prospectively evaluate outcome of children suffering from severe traumatic brain injury with particular reference to the impact of multimodalities monitoring on their management. After having demonstrating the importance of this approach in preventing avoidable secondary injury in neurotrauma, the program was extended to the management of other pathological conditions sharing with head trauma the potential of additional preventable cerebral injury in the brain, such as subarachnoid haemorrhage, hypoxic-ischemic or infective lesions.

Besides conforming that the management of neurotrauma in children is significantly different from that required for adults patients, the investigations carried out by Dr. Figaji have pointed out the current limits of the currently utilized parameters ñ clinical examination, blood pressure, intracranial pressure - for evaluating the adequacy of brain oxygenation and emphasized the necessity of other addition of tools, such as, for example, brain oxygen and autoregulation monitoring, transcranial Doppler, biomarkers of injury.

The experience so gained in the last-years, has allowed Dr. Figaji to establish fruitful cooperation with other clinical centers in North America and Europe aimed at re-energising the research effort into the management of pediatric brain injury and developing new strategies and protocols for treatment.

The papers considered by our journal for the Raimondi Award should be regarded as a recognition of this intense research and clinical work and a stimulus for the ongoing projects in the field.

C. Di Rocco

Editor Child's Nervous System

Previous Raimondi Award winners: (from left to right) Francesco Sala (2002), Vassilios I Vougioukas (2003), Yuichiro Nonaka (2004), Seok-gu Kang (2005) and Daniela Ierardi (2007)

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Raimondi Award submissions should be sent directly to the Editor of Child's Nervous System, Professor C. DiRocco.

Further information

More information on the Anthony J. Raimondi Award can be downloaded here.