Greeting

Yoshikatsu Saiki, M.D., Ph.D.

Congress President of the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting
of the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery
Professor and Chairman,

Division of Cardiovascular Surgery,
Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku University

I have been appointed as a Congress President of the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery, which will be held from Thursday, October 19 through Saturday, October 21, 2023, at the Sendai International Center (Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture). It is a great honor to have been given this opportunity.

The theme of the meeting is defined as 『 "Harmonization" and "Co-Creation" to go one step further』. While cooperating with Dr. Atsushi Watanabe from Sapporo Medical University as a president of the thoracic surgery section and Dr. Masayuki Watanabe from the Cancer Institute Hospital of JFCR as a president of the esophagus section, we would like to create a place for academic activities that can advance thoracic surgery even one step further by putting our heads together, bringing data together and accumulating discussions about the common issues that straddle the three fields or reside even within each section.

We hope that you will come up with research methodology and concrete plans that will lead to answers to the problems, and we will be able to accumulate the achievement by extracting focused unsolved problems and presenting specific clinical questions. To this end, we set a certain number of issues to be examined from among many issues, aiming to clarify even one issue by conducting in-depth discussions.

The sustained period of spread of a unique infectious disease has brought a major turning point to academic meetings; however, I believe that we were able to reaffirm the importance of deepening the discussion in person during the 75th Annual Meeting last time held on-site for the first time in last three years. This year, in order to have further fruitful discussions, I would like to ask myself what the fundamental perspective of the academic conference is, reconsider its significance together with the participants, and would like to lead the meeting to success by focusing on essential activities.

Sendai, the city of trees deepens in autumn, is a season when the contrast between autumn leaves and greenery is very beautiful and worth seeing. We are really looking forward to meeting you here in Sendai.

Atsushi Watanabe, M.D., Ph.D.

President of the Thoracic Section
of the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting
of the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery
Professor,

Department of Thoracic Surgery, Sapporo Medical University

I have been appointed the President of the Thoracic Surgery Section for the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery (JATS). JATS was established in 1948 and has over 8,000 members now. It is a great honor for me to serve as the President, and the heavy responsibility humbles me. Under the leadership of Prof. Yoshikatsu Saiki, the Congress President, while cooperating with Dr. Masayuki Watanabe, the President of the Esophageal Surgery Section, we are planning and preparing for a successful and meaningful meeting.

As is well known, JATS is an academic association that aims to contribute to the improvement and development of each field and cross-sectional (integrated) area in an integrated and organic manner while utilizing each specialized field of surgery that deals with cardiovascular, thoracic, and esophageal surgeries in the chest. Therefore, at this meeting, we strongly hope that there will be lively presentations and discussions that transcend the boundaries of each of them.

In planning this meeting, we established clear Clinical Questions (CQs) for the advanced sessions along with the traditional session themes. We are asking you to register a study that clarifies the answer to the CQs or comes as close as possible to the answer. Considering that it takes time to set up research and collect data, we announced the session theme, CQs, and outline earlier. In the respiratory field, We have set up 9 advanced sessions " Indication of sub-lobar resection for non-small cell lung cancer", " Impact of donor factors on outcome of lung transplantation", "Multimodality therapy using immune checkpoint inhibitor for malignant pleural mesothelioma" ," Do＆Don't for best practice of minimally invasive thoracic surgery" and so on. All of these themes include problems that need to be solved at present, and we believe they will contribute to elucidating the set CQs.

The results of the comparison of lobectomy and limited resection for 2 cm or less non-small cell lung cancer in the peripheral of the lung field (lobectomy and limited resection for small non-small cell lung cancer in the peripheral of the lung field: JCOG0802 / WJOG4607L) disseminated by the Japanese Thoracic Surgeons were published in Lancet in April 2022, making limited surgery a growing presence. Moreover, in the respiratory field, combined with advances in multidisciplinary treatment, nonsurgical pre- and post-operative treatment and extended surgery are being performed not only for lung cancer but also for advanced thoracic malignancies. Moreover, minimally invasive surgery is moving in two directions, from multi-portal thoracoscopic surgery to uni-portal thoracoscopic surgery and robot-assisted thoracic surgery. Under these circumstances, we would appreciate your cooperation in making this a meaningful academic meeting for active discussions not only in the field of thoracic surgery but also in the cross-sectional field. Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone involved in the planning and operation of the meeting.

We look forward to your participation in Sendai, where the autumn leaves will begin in 2023.

Masayuki Watanabe, M.D., Ph.D.

President of the Esophageal Section
of the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting
of the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery
Deputy Hospital Director,

Department of Gastroenterological Surgery,
Cancer Institute Hospital of Japanese
Foundation for Cancer Research

It is my great honor to be appointed as the President of the Esophageal Surgery Section for the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery (JATS). I will try my best to ensure the success of the 76th Annual Scientific Meeting, cooperating with professor Saiki, the Congress President, and Professor Atsushi Watanabe, the President of the Thoracic Surgery Section.

A strong point of the JATS is that cardiovascular, thoracic, and esophageal surgeons come together to discuss cross-disciplinary matters. We hope such a discussion will provide a novel point of view and may lead to alternative knowledge.

Concerning the Esophageal Surgery Section of the meeting, we have decided on the following sessions based on the discussion of the program committee: the main sessions include the Video Symposium, ‘Feasibility and safety of minimally invasive approach for locally advanced cT3br or cT4 esophageal cancer; the Panel Discussion, ‘Long-term outcomes of esophageal reconstruction after esophagectomy’; the Workshop, ‘Let’s discuss recurrence within the surgical field’; the Workshop,’ Let’s discuss perioperative management of esophagectomy’; and the Debate, ‘Prophylactic lymphadenectomy in salvage esophagectomy: to do or not to do.’ I expect we will have an opportunity for thorough discussions based on the well-prepared data from the participant.

Esophageal cancer treatment has become a multidisciplinary era, and we often discuss the strategies with medical oncologists, endoscopists, and radiation oncologists. Alternatively, the time to discuss surgical technology and perioperative management in the other congress has gradually decreased. Let’s enjoy discussing surgical matters in beautiful Sendai in Autumn.
We look forward to seeing you.