The 20th General Meeting of the Japan Society of Hepatology President Tadatoshi Takayama Department of Digestive Surgery, Nihon University

I am honored to have been named president of the 20th General Meeting of the Japan Society of Hepatology. The meeting will fully take part in JDDW 2016, which consists of five gastroenterological societies and is going to be held from 3rd November (Thu.) to 6th November (Sun.), 2016 at Kobe Convention Center.

While advancement of recent gastroenterology has been truly impressive, one has fewer opportunities today to efficiently update one’s knowledge outside one’s areas of specialty as each specialty becomes increasingly more diversified and segmentalized. JDDW is made up of five academic societies. Its programs cover the latest knowledge and findings across the entire field of gastroenterology, meeting the diverse needs of the participants to extend their knowledge beyond their specialties.

For the Integrated Program, the Japan Society of Hepatology has chosen the themes of “Hepatitis virus treatment after radical hepatocellular carcinoma treatment” and “Current problems in obesity treatment.” At the JDDW 2016, we hope to reach a certain consensus on hepatitis C treatment, which is undergoing a drastic change with the emergence of interferon-free treatment, and active discussions on the potential problems that the new treatment method may pose.

There is also a need for societies participating in JDDW to explore solutions from cross-cutting, inter-disciplinary perspectives on the issues of metabolic syndrome and diabetes-related obesity, which are becoming national diseases in Japan. In the International Session, experts from around the world will have discussions on the latest developments in “hepatitis virus and genome analysis: towards cancer prevention.” For the Invited Lecture, Prof. V. Mazzaferro of Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori (National Cancer Institute of Milan), who is renowned for the Milan criteria in liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma, will give a lecture on the principles of the state-of-the-art treatment of liver cancer.

I am confident that the comprehensive and cross-cutting knowledge presented at this conference will cast a new light on all the participants ranging from the young, the experienced to the leaders in terms of their daily medical treatment, and it will help bring their clinical knowledge fully up to date.

We extend a warm invitation to you to join us and hope active discussions at the JDDW 2016 in Japan.