On September 2, 2005, after a courageous battle with a progressive pulmonary disorder, Cassio Raposo do Amaral, MD, PhD, died at age 62.

This was a tragic loss to Cassio's family: his wife Vera and sons Cassio Eduardo and Cesar Augusto, both of whom are training to be plastic surgeons. It was also a great loss to the specialty of craniofacial surgery (Cassio was at his absolute prime), and to the International Society of Craniofacial Surgery in particular, since Cassio had just been elected President of the organization in Monterey, California, and was to succeed David David.

Cassio graduated from medical school in Campinas, Brazil (UNICAMP), and trained in general surgery there and in Rio de Janeiro. His plastic surgery training was taken in São Paolo, where he also obtained a PhD. Following this, Cassio spent a year (1972-73) with John Marquis Converse at NYU, and the following year with Paul Tessier in Paris. Henry Kawamoto was in New York and Paris at the same time as Cassio, and the two of then became close friends.

On his return to Brazil, Cassio established the plastic surgery unit at UNICAMP, and later founded SOBRAPAR (the Brazilian Society for Research and Care for Craniofacial Rehabilitation). This charitable institution was unique in Brazil, grew as Cassio put together an outstanding multidisciplinary team, and resulted in the building of a first-rate hospital/research institute devoted entirely to craniofacil surgery—something that remains unmatched in the world.

In the 1980's, Henry Kawamoto and I took a number of trips with Paul Tessier to operate with Cassio at SOBRAPAR on his seemingly endless supply of patients with craniofacial malformations. These were fabulous learning experiences for all concerned, and resulted in many new and useful techniques in craniofacial surgery.

Cassio was a fearless surgeon, and was ready to try anything new to see if it worked as the authors claimed. After it was reported that a monobloc frontofacial advancement could be performed without osteotomies, Cassio tried a number of cases this way--and showed that it was not quite as claimed. For whatever frontofacial advancement was obtained, there was a posterior movement of the rest of the skull, and a marked lengthening of the sella turcica.

The venue for the XIIth Meeting of the ISCFS was chosen by Cassio to be in Bahia, and thanks to absolutely essential help from Vera and Cassio's colleagues at SOBRAPAR, I am pleased that it will remain in Bahia, a wonderfully vibrant, historic city.

I would like to dedicate this meeting to the memory of our friend, our colleague, and an outstanding craniofacial surgeon, Cassio Raposo do Amaral. This was meant to be his meeting, and still is.

—S. Anthony Wolfe, MD    
President, ISCFS