Farewell to Professor Bestagno, pioneer of nuclear medicine in Brescia

Yesterday afternoon, Professor Maurizio Bestagno, Knight of the Italian Republic, passed away at the age of 91. His name is closely linked to the history of the Civil Hospital of Brescia, where in 1956 he created the first nuclear medicine center in Italy.

After a long career of professional success, after having brought his department to Italian excellence in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, in 2009 Bestagno left his profession, and the Civil hospital, to enjoy his retirement.

The story of how our city has equipped itself with an avant-garde center for nuclear medicine was provided a few years ago by Professor Bestagno, in the columns of “La Gocce magazine”; we report it in full: “The isolated experiences hitherto conducted in some Italian cities had led to the awareness of a pressing need to better coordinate these services within hospitals. Some colleagues had informed me, we are in 1966, that Brescia too intended to some extent to proceed with the creation of a nuclear laboratory. So, in the summer of that year, passing through the city, I introduce myself to the management to understand what the intentions of the management were. And in truth it was a disappointing meeting: the intentions were to create a small radiotherapy section, without adventures in the dark and using similar experiences already in place elsewhere.
I expressed my perplexities and also explained how in reality we should proceed to the birth of a real autonomous center, naturally leaving Brescia to decide in its own way. In the summer of a year later, 1967, I received a phone call: “Are you always interested?” was the request. “It depends, if you want to do something good” was my reply. In August 1967, Giovanni Savoldi and some councilors met in the council room. After a few weeks, the first autonomous nuclear medicine ward was opening in Brescia, with a structure revolving around a diagnostic sector, a hospitalization section for therapy and the laboratory».

The funeral of Professor Bestagno – who is leaving his wife Liliana, his sister Magda and children Marco, Paolo and Francesco – will take place tomorrow, Monday 9 August, at 3.30 pm, in the parish church of San Gaudenzio in Mompiano, starting from the Civile morgue. After the ceremony we will continue to the Cremation Temple.