I am Shinsaku Fukuda of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hematology at Hirosaki University Graduate School of Medicine. It is my greatest pleasure to be serving as President of the 98th Congress of the Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society (JGES), an academic society that has a long standing history. The 98th Congress of JGES will be a part of Japan Digestive Disease Week (JDDW) 2019 in Kobe, which will be held from November 21 (Thursday) to 24 (Sunday) in 2019.

Our department was established in 1948 by the late Professor Fujio Matsunaga when he was appointed the professor of Hirosaki Medical University (which was renamed Hirosaki University in 1952). I am the first professor from the department to serve as the President of the Congress of JGES. The 35th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Gastroenterology (JSGE) convened during the 1st memorable JDDW held in 1993 was chaired by Hirosaki University Honorary Professor Yutaka Yoshida. This means that I am the second person from Hirosaki University to chair a part of JDDW for the first time in 26 years.

JDDW is an academic meeting where five gastroenterology-related academic societies gather to discuss various issues from all directions. For the 98th Congress of JGES, 15 themes have been selected after careful consideration of the current issues and future perspectives of both gastroenterological endoscopy and gastroenterology by the program committee based on a questionnaire survey of JGES members. These include three JGES core sessions and two international sessions. The two international sessions are: "Evaluation of current status and near future perspectives of capsule endoscopy" and "New diagnostic and therapeutic modality in biliopancreatic diseases". I sincerely hope that these sessions will provide a great opportunity for meaningful discussions with researchers invited from abroad. Furthermore, taking advantage of the collaborative feature of JDDW, we have many themes that will be addressed in joint sessions with other societies.

We would like to ask many of you to attend the meeting, make presentations, and participate in the discussions actively.