PARIS - Prof. Denis Le Bihan received the prestigious Antoine Béclère medal on the opening day of the French national radiology congress, Journées Francophones de Radiologie (JFR). In this exclusive onsite video interview, he talked to correspondent Mélisande Rouger at JFR 2022 about the clinical potential of diffusion MRI, his team's efforts to develop a dedicated MRI scanner for breast screening, and the progress made on the 11.7-tesla prototype machine.
"The award means a lot," he said. "Antoine Béclère started the Parisian Society of Radiology, which became the SFR, back in 1909. He's the father of French radiology."
The award is a recognition of 40 years dedicated to advancing diffusion MRI, which enabled the development of a treatment for acute stroke, Le Bihan noted. "We can save the lives of stroke patients, and this started with diffusion MRI."
He added that MRI has a far better sensitivity than mammography, but it is not as widely available and is plagued by gadolinium-based contrast product issues. "My dream is to make a very small and cheap dedicated MRI system for the breast, which could be used for screening ... It could replace mammography."
