Message from JDDW President

I am pleased to welcome you all to the 22nd Japan Digestive Disease Week (JDDW) organized under joint efforts of the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology, Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society, the Japan Society of Hepatology, and the Japanese Society of Gastroenterological Surgery, four key member societies of JDDW, together with the Japanese Society of Gastrointestinal Cancer Screening.

With the number of attendees to the annual JDDW conferences surpassing 20,000 for two years in a row since 2012, JDDW is now one of the largest gastroenterology conferences in the world and provides a stage for a growing number of high-quality scientific presentations. Under the outstanding leadership of Dr. Soichiro Miura, the Steering Committee Chair, more than 3,000 papers including cutting-edge symposia, workshops and panel discussions will be presented.

JDDW 2014 will provide high levels of science for all the international guests to participate in the meeting, since lectures and symposia covering a variety of topics presented by world renowned invited speakers are planned every day. We are very happy to have a number of enthusiastic and outstanding young physicians attending this meeting as awardees of the travel grant. I do hope these young physicians to take this opportunity to enjoy the meeting as well as to promote mutual friendships.

Starting from this year, all presentations for the general session will take the digital poster format, enabling presenters to use video in their presentations and allowing participants to browse all the presented posters on digital poster monitors in the viewing corner within Poster Venue during JDDW. You are freed from carrying heavy presentation materials. Together with the digital abstract distribution services we have already introduced, the digital poster is expected to provide extra convenience for both the attendees and presenters.

This year we will also be introducing six joint JDDW programs in addition to the programs organized by the member societies. The aim is to combine cross-cutting discussions on the issues of gastroenterology from the perspectives of various specializations such as surgery and internal medicine with discussions that have gradually evolved at past JDDW conferences. Each of the presentations in the joint programs has been selected to stimulate discussions from a broad perspective. We are very much looking forward to the bidirectional discussions.

In addition to the JDDW Educational Lectures, this year’s JDDW will feature a hands-on seminar organized by the Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society. Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity in thanking the presidents of the member societies, the chair of the Preparatory Committee, and members of the program committee for developing plans for the many attractive, wonderful programs and events. JDDW officials and members of the JDDW secretariat renew our resolve in doing our best to fulfill the mandate of JDDW.

We look forward to seeing many of you in Kobe.

Kentaro Sugano
President, Japan Digestive Disease Week