Welcome Message

A message for the 66th Annual Meeting of the
Japanese Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I cordially invite you all to attend the 66th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology on December 13th on 15th. The meeting will be held at Kyoto International Conference Center in the City of Kyoto, Japan with the theme of “Always with you 〜Clinical Practice and Research for Children with Cancer〜.

The meeting will cover both clinical and scientific advances in childhood cancers including leukemia, lymphoma, histiocytosis, brain tumor, neuroblastoma, germ cell tumor, soft tissue sarcoma, bone tumor, liver tumor, kidney tumor, retinoblastoma, etc, in addition to non-malignant-diseases including hemophilia, aplastic anemia, thrombocytopenia, neutropenia, inherited bone marrow failure, inborn errors of immunity. For managing such patients, a great variety of qualified professionals such as pediatricians, pediatric surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, urologists, ophthalmologists, pathologists, radiologists, anesthesiologists, palliative care doctors and geneticists will be invited. Specialists in hematopoietic cell transplantation will also join. Moreover, even wider variety of medical and healthcare professionals are involved in the treatment an follow-up of children and family members. For this reason this meeting has traditionally been held in conjunction with the meeting of nursing and parent’s association for many years.

We also established a local organizing committee with Universities and Hospitals in Kyoto ang Shiga Prefecture. A lot of foreign investigators will be invited to Kyoto, too. I think that a face-to-face conference is more important for people, especially young medical professionals after the COVID-19 disasters. I look forward to seeing you all in persons at the meeting of Kyoto and I hope that all the participants will have confidence that we are doing very important job for children.

A message for the 22nd Annual Meeting of the
Japanese Society of Pediatric Oncology Nursing

The theme of the conference to be held in Kyoto is “Always with You〜Clinical Practice and Research for Children with Cancer.” In recent years, owing to advances in medicine and the application of research breakthroughs to clinical practice settings, many children with cancer have been able to survive for long periods. However, children with cancer not only suffer from physical distress such as various side effects and late effects of treatment, but they also experience psychological and social distress due to prolonged hospitalization, separation from family and friends, and being unable to play or learn freely. A major role of pediatric nurses is to provide high-quality care that can enable children with cancer to live their lives, grow, and develop, despite or because of cancer. High-quality nursing care can only be achieved through experimental knowledge and the application of cutting-edge research. The conference will demonstrate the essential role and attitude of nurses; such scientific and artistic nursing care is the ideal form of nursing care for children with cancer, and the demand for such high-quality nursing will increase in the future.

Another important point to be considered with regard to high-quality pediatric nursing is that nurses are also at please. Nursing involves the interaction between children and families. I hope this conference allows participants to learn from new findings in the field and gain valuable knowledge, as well as to meet, discuss, and form relationships with like-minded colleagues so that they may resume their daily practice, research, and education with revitalized energy.

To make the conference a success, I have invited my excellent and highly competent colleagues to act as committee members. We planned a Keynote Lecture and Nursing Symposium to discuss on the subject of “Dialogue with children.” The Keynote speaker is Mr. Jun Tashiro, medical anthropologist and author of the book titled “Children in the Pediatric Cancer Ward” For the Nursing Symposium, we have three speakers: an in-hospital class teacher, a certified nurse specialist in child health nursing, and a childhood cancer survivor. The International Exchange Committee of the Japanese Society of Pediatric Oncology Nursing (JSPON) organized the 3rd International Seminar as the Nursing Key Educational Seminar. The seminar is titled “Shared Decision-making in the Care of Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults with Advanced Cancer”, and the speaker is Dr. Jennifer W. Mack, a well-known researcher in end-of-life decision-making and communication with children with cancer and their families. Moreover, we have planned an interactive session among the participants, a Research Café, to share and discuss nurses’ concerns or questions regarding current nursing care in the clinical setting. In addition, we have two Joint Symposiums by the Japanese Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (JSPHO) and Children’s Cancer Association of Japan (CCAJ). Furthermore, the Committee of the JSPON has planned several interesting seminars and educational programs. We have arranged oral and poster sessions to provide a meaningful perspective on nursing care for children with cancer and their families. As you can see, we have provided an exciting and warmly welcoming program so that participants will leave with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in coming to Kyoto and participating in this conference.

We sincerely hope you will participate and look forward to meeting you in historic Kyoto.

A message for the 29th Open Symposium of the
Children’s Cancer Association of Japan

It is our great pleasure to host the 29th Open Symposium of the Children’s Cancer Association of Japan (CCAJ) on Dec., 15th 2024 in Kyoto jointly with the Japanese Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (JSPHO) and the Japanese Society of Pediatric Oncology Nursing (JSPON).

Since its founding in 1968, CCAJ has been undertaking various activities to support childhood cancer patients and their families from the standpoint of families. Successful achievement of all our activities would not have been possible without the support of JSPHO and JSPON, as well as all other medical professionals dedicated to fighting childhood cancer. This Open Symposium is one of the most important events symbolizing our long-standing collaboration with these two medical societies. Taking this opportunity, I wish to express my sincere gratitude for the support of the both societies as well as the chairpersons of the conference.

The title of this year’s symposium is “What is the optimal environment for childhood cancer patients? ～During and after treatments～”. This theme has been selected with consideration to the shared theme of the conference which is “Always with You〜Clinical Practice and Research for Children with Cancer”.

Total care centering children with cancer is one of the most important and common notion in childhood cancer medical care. In recent decades we have seen swift progress of medicine in the field of childhood cancer, and the environment for childhood cancer patients during and after treatments has also changed a lot along with the progress of medicine. However, we believe that it is worthwhile to take a fresh look at the real situation of patient care and ask a question about the optimal environment for childhood cancer patients now.

We have requested Dr. Soich Adachi and Prof. Mari Matsuoka to be the co-chairperson and invited Ms. Mikiko Otani Esq. a renowned expert in the field of children's rights as a keynote speaker, and professionals knowledgeable in the area of patients care, and a parent and a survivor as speakers. We expect that the presentations as well as discussions in the symposium will be conducive to improve modern day patients care practices further.

Besides this symposium, there will be other events and programs such as “Exhibition of Drawings by Childhood Cancer Patients” throughout the conference period, poster presentations reporting the accomplishments of “Research Grant Program by CCAJ” and setting of a booth introducing advocacy organizations/groups of childhood cancer across Japan. Also, there will be a popular “Charity Marathon & Walk” around World Heritage Site “Nijo-Jo Castle” in the early morning of Sunday Dec., 15th.

For us CCAJ, participating in the conference of JSPHO/JSPON annually means not just the opportunity to glimpse and feel the progress in childhood cancer medicine but also has an important meaning of reassuring ourselves that patients and families are an important part of the chain encircling children in childhood cancer treatment.

In closing, I would like to thank both JSPHO and JSPON for their generous support and cooperation, which enable us to hold these programs. We are looking very much forward to meeting you in Kyoto.