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Professor Tryggve Lundar passed away early this September, and with him, one of the founders of modern pediatric neurosurgery in Norway and Scandinavia is gone.

His remarkable career started during the 1970s when he joined the staff of the Department of Neurosurgery at Rikshospitalet in Oslo. Although originally planning to become a neurologist, it was soon evident that neurosurgery was much more appealing to him. After defending his thesis on neurointensive care in open-heart surgery in 1984, he devoted his further career to pediatric neurosurgery. Throughout his lifelong clinical and scientific work, he thus continued the strong pediatric neurosurgical tradition in Oslo, starting with Arne Torkildsen in the middle of the last century, and later expanded by Karl H. Hovind, with whom Tryggve worked closely.

We, all his former colleagues and trainees, and of course particularly the pediatric patients and their families through several decades have benefited immensely from Tryggve’s passion for this field of neurosurgery. Even after becoming the chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Rikshospitalet, one of the busiest neurosurgical services in Northern Europe, Tryggve remained engaged in the activities of the department’s pediatric section.

As the chairman, he led the department from below and up, always giving the highest priority to the interests of the patients, their families, and the medical staff.

After his official retirement just a few years ago, Tryggve continued tutoring PhD students and producing scientific articles, mostly related to long-term outcome, quality of life, and treatment-related morbidity in patients suffering from different types of hydrocephalus as well as brain tumors in childhood. The latest of these articles was published in the spring earlier this year, just a few months before his death. In total, more than one hundred publications bear his signature.

Importantly, in his papers, Tryggve was not referring to just cold numbers and outcome data, but he actually could recall the medical and personal histories of the patients treated many decades ago. He kept contact with many of them, thus being able to refer to their outcome status in a very detailed and reliable fashion.

We know that Tryggve was very proud of having built up a dedicated pediatric section and ward within the frames of the neurosurgical department, a model he believed could best combine the availability of the wide neurosurgical expertise with dedication and focus necessary for the successful treatment of our most vulnerable patients—the children.

On our side, we feel honored of having Tryggve close to us for so many years as our mentor and a role model of a dedicated pediatric neurosurgeon. In all humbleness, we hope to be able to pass his legacy to the next generation of pediatric neurosurgeons.

Bernt J. Due-Tønnessen

Arild Egge

Radek Frič

On behalf of the staff of the Department of Neurosurgery, Oslo University Hospital-Rikshospitalet.