The 60th General Meeting of the Japanese Society of
Gastrointestinal Cancer Screening
President: Yasumasa Niwa
Aichi Cancer Center Hospital

I am Yasumasa Niwa, Director of Aichi Cancer Center Hospital.

I am serving as President of the 60th General Meeting of the Japanese Society of Gastrointestinal Cancer Screening at JDDW 2022. It is a great honor and privilege for me to welcome you at the conference, which is organized in parallel with other meetings and congresses under the JDDW.

The main theme of our conference is “The Search for the Next-Generation Screening for Gastrointestinal Cancer”.

As everyone knows, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the screening systems for gastrointestinal cancer in Japan, dramatically decreasing the chances of diagnosing cancer at an early stage. Besides, several other factors have had an impact on the screening systems, including population ageing, decreasing prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection, changes in the social structure, and increasing prevalence of colorectal and pancreatic cancer. On the other hand, we expect the integration of ICT and innovative diagnostic tests will bring about a paradigm shift in the screening systems.

We have two topics for the panel discussion at the conference. The first one will focus on “The highly accurate screening for gastric cancer”, and the second one will address “The effective colorectal cancer screening to reduce mortality”.

We will also feature two invited lectures by two distinguished researchers. Prof. Linda Rabeneck from University of Toronto will talk about global trends on colorectal cancer screening, and Prof. Ayumu Taguchi from Aichi Cancer Center will speak about the blood-based biomarkers for early detection of colorectal cancer.

We hope you will join us at the JDDW 2022 where you will find many opportunities to discuss a broad range of topics on gastrointestinal cancer screening.

We look forward to seeing you at the JDDW 2022 in Fukuoka.
Thank you.