Greeting

The 31st Annual Meeting of the Japanese Breast Cancer Society will be held at PACIFICO Yokohama North from June 29 to July 1, 2023. The Cancer Institute Hospital of JFCR will be hosting the Annual Meeting after a seven-year interval, having previously organized the 6th Annual Meeting chaired by Dr. Fujio Kasumi and the 24th Annual Meeting chaired by Dr. Takuji Iwase. I am very aware of both the great honor this conveys and of the weight of responsibility placed on our hospital.

The theme of this Annual Meeting is “Shine Today, Pioneer the Future: Evolution and Innovation.” Sometimes rapidly, at times more slowly, breast cancer medicine is making consistent progress. The care we provide today was developed through our predecessors’ efforts and experience. Tomorrow’s care will also be more advanced than today’s, and this is as it should be. We must contribute to the evolution of breast cancer medicine in the spirit of “standing on the shoulders of giants,” by valuing the past, living in the present, and looking to the future. Scientific developments such as digital transformation (DX) and artificial intelligence are also expected to bring about revolutionary innovations in future. However, breast cancer patients and their families, the medical staff dealing with breast cancer, everyone else involved with the disease in some way, and indeed society as a whole are all living in the present. If our present is bright, the future will surely open up before us.

We are organizing this Annual Meeting so that it will be a venue where the young doctors who will shoulder our future can expect to play an active part and make great strides themselves. The meeting itself will only last three days, but we are planning a number of events to make good use of the coming year following on from the 30th Annual Meeting. We are considering utilizing online meetings and seminars as pre-events with the aim of further improving the Annual Meeting.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly diminished opportunities to meet in person, and this has had a very negative effect on society. I hope that we will be able to restore the interactions that are so important for communication.

I am grateful for your support in making this Annual Meeting a memorable event that will be fruitful for the present and future of everyone who attends, and look forward to seeing you all there.