March 19, 2019
Dear colleagues, friends, and sponsors,
It is our great pleasure and honor to extend to you a warm invitation to the 60th Annual Meeting of the Japan Lung Cancer Society in the lively city of Osaka from December 6th (Fri) to December 8th (Sun). I am deeply grateful to all the members for giving me the opportunity to prepare the stage for the remarkable new clinical and basic research in thoracic oncology.
The theme of this year’s meeting is entitiled "Towards a World without Lung Cancer". Although this may seem idealistic, the amazing progress and recent advancements in precision medicine, minimally invasive therapy, molecular targeted therapy, and immunotherapy indicate that this goal is not far from being reached.
Currently, as many as 75,000 people in Japan alone and 1.6 million people worldwide die of lung cancer annually. Nevertheless, more and more people are living longer with the disease as a result of advances in treatment. For these patients to live a better life, it is important that physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, researchers, scientists, and patients and their advocates work together to fight lung cancer. Therefore, in addition to presenting and discussing the latest advances in lung cancer medicine, we will organize a program that takes into consideration the multifaceted aspects of lung cancer research, which include prevention, screening, team medicine, advocacy, and palliative care.
International cooperation is increasingly important these days. As such, we will invite prominent experts from overseas and plan to proactively attract proffered international papers, especially from Asian countries, with travel grants. We hope that this will provide young doctors, both in Japan and other countries, with the incentive and motivation to be the leaders of the next generation.
This year, the JLCS turns 60 and we would like to celebrate this anniversary with a special program in the meeting as well as by distributing a book on the history of lung cancer and the Lung Cancer Society.
We will do our best to make all doctors, medical staff, patients and families, and industry people involved with lung cancer feel that this meeting is fruitful and rewarding as well as inspiring. We sincerely look forward to welcoming you to an educational and enjoyable program in Osaka.
