It is our great honour and pleasure to invite you to the coming 33rd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Radiation Oncology (JASTRO) at the Royton Sapporo Hotel and Sapporo Education and Culture Hall on October 1-3, 2019. We promise that researchers from foreign countries can join us to enjoy the meeting as speakers or audiences since there will be special English lectures by distinguished guests and international sessions for you.

The main theme of the 33rd annual meeting of JASTRO is “Pursuit of Truth and Well-being of people”. It is based on my promise with the late Professor Goro Irie about a quarter century ago. One day, Dr. Irie asked me to “write and bring me the words which you think most important in your life”. Hence, the theme is a tribute to the late Prof. Goro Irie, who had greatly contributed to the development of radiation therapy in Japan.

The principles of an ideal research must include pursuing truth which leads people to achieve a peaceful life. However, pursuit of truth exclusively may not necessarily lead them to well-being peaceful lives, and when compromising with what is sufficient for people to be at peace, progress in learning will stop. For this reason, it is difficult to maintain a focus on both pursing truth and achieving well-being peaceful lives.

Radiation oncology has ideal characteristics as an academic discipline. It is based on the universal science of mathematics and physics, the pursuit of the truth through scientific discussions leads directly to reducing the suffering of patients and their family, and can lead people to peace.

The rule of the academic convention is that all participants will pursue the truth scientifically. Originally, the performer and the audience are equal, but the role of the audience tends to be passive anyway. This time, we will use active learning in several sessions, aiming to disseminate independent, proactive and deep knowledge. In this academic conference, we hope that individual participants discuss equally, participants actively absorb deep knowledge, the ripples spread throughout Japan and the world, and as a result people become peaceful.

I have a dream. I have a dream one day all the cancer patients can be cured by our common strategy, radiotherapy, in the society without inequality caused by the illness. You may say I'm a dreamer but I think I'm not the only one. I hope you will join us in Sapporo to make our dreams come true.

How many times do we need to hold these meetings before we cure all the cancer patients? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the Hokkaido wind...

See you in Sapporo.