On behalf of the Organizing committee of Japan Shoulder Society (JSS) I
would like to extend a very warm welcome for all to our 37th Annual Meeting
in Sendai Miyagi Prefecture in Japan.
Sendai International Center is located in the urban city of Sendai, at the West side of beautiful Hirose river and is adjacent to the site of Aoba Castle which was built by a powerful clan Masamune Date 400 years ago.
JSS was founded in 1974. This is the oldest shoulder society in the world.
The first meeting was held in Tokushima, on 18th of October 1974, with an organization of Dr. Hisao Endo of Naruto Hospital.
Eleven papers were presented there. The number of papers of the 2nd meeting in Yamaguchi was 15 and it grew up to 35 in the 3rd one in Fukuoka in 1976: when Dr. Charles Neer was invited. After 33 years, we had 275 papers in a 2 day meeting last year.
In the past, we had this meeting once in Sendai. The 15th Annual Meeting was held under the presidency of Prof. Minoru Sakurai,
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Tohoku University School of Medicine
in 1988. It is our honor to host again in the city of green Sendai after
22 years. The local organizing committee included members of the Sendai
Shoulder Group headed by Dr. Katsumi Sato, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery,
Tohoku Rosai Hospital.
For a long time, all the slides have been displayed in English at JSS. We have accepted many papers from overseas particularly from Asian countries. All the papers have been evaluated and judged by the council members of our society in a democratic manner.
Since 2003, we have had an accompanying meeting of nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists at the same site.
This year, we have the following 4 themes as main topics.
1) Contracture of the shoulder= from basic research to the clinic
(i) It’s best not to exceed an elevation of 120°.
(ii) Primary and secondary contracture should be distinguished.
2) Osteoarthrosis of the shoulder
3) Long term follow up of the rotator cuff tear: with minimum follow up of 10 years
(i) Both operated and non-operated cases would be discussed.
4) Basic research of the shoulder
I intended to put a scientific view on the contracture of the shoulder, which is quite common in our clinics. The incidence of osteoarthrosis of the shoulder is considered to be less frequent in Japan compared with that in western countries, but it has not been evaluated adequately.
I think the evaluation should be done long term after rotator cuff surgery
for future comparison of the currently performed arthroscopic repairs.
Finally we have many research-minded shoulder surgeons who are undergoing
shoulder clinics while facilitating basic research.
This is the background of our reasons for choosing these topics.
We have two excellent shoulder surgeons and researchers from the world
as presidential guest lectures. The names and lecture titles are as follows.
1)
Andrew J Carr MA, ChM. FRCS, FMedSci.
Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, UK
“The Pathology of Rotator Cuff Tears”
2)
Seung- Ho Kim, M.D.
Madi International Learning Center for Shoulder Arthroscopy
Madi Hospital, Seoul, Korea
“Arthroscopic Treatment of Massive and Large Cuff Tears”
In October, we have very comfortable and fine days in Sendai and Tohoku
(East- North of mainland Japan) district with an average temperature 20°C.
Sendai has many direct international flights from Asian cities including
Seoul, Taipei, Shanghai, Changchun and Beijing.
I hope many of our friends come over to Sendai and enjoy our meeting academically and socially.
Jun Kumagai, MD, PhD.
President of the 37th Annual Meeting of Japan Shoulder Society
Head of Graduate School of Health Sciences
Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences
Yamagata, Japan