Editor’s Note:
The IASLC 18th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC 2017) was successfully held in Yokohama, Japan, from October 15th to 18th. At the last day of the conference, we were honoured to have a brief interview with Dr. Hisao Asamura and Dr. Keunchil Park, the Co-Presidents of the conference.
Presidential remarks: WCLC 2017, a successful conference with record-breaking attendance and high scientific quality
Experts’ Introduction
Keunchil Park, MD, PhD, is a professor at the Samsung Medical Center at Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea. His research interests include thoracic head and neck oncology, early clinical trials and the development of experimental therapeutics.
Hisao Asamura, MD, is chief of thoracic surgery at the National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo, Japan. His research interest include thoracic surgery.
Interview
In the interview (Figure 1), Dr. Hisao Asamura and Dr. Keunchil Park have summarized the grand event with data: more than 6,700 delegates, over 70 sessions, more than 350 speakers, and over 2,000 abstracts submitted. Dr. Keunchil Park also shared the highlights of the WCLC held in Yokohama this year, which include immunotherapeutic, molecular targeted therapy, biomarker development, and clinical trials of combined therapy (especially in the treatment of advanced lung cancer).
Dr. Asamura said, “As a whole, we gather 6,700 people with the very extended discussions, and so we are able to say it is making successful as a whole. Since 2015, the WCLC is held annually. Some people expected that attendees might be decreased because of the annual meeting. However the number of attendees is maintained. People are much more interested in the new treatment of lung cancer, so this is a new phase of lung cancer treatment.”
At last, Dr. Park expressed his appreciation to all the speakers and delegates with the heartfelt words, “Totally, it was a great meeting with record-breaking attendance, I guess. We are grateful for all our delegates who make it despite a long trip and despite their busy schedules. All the great achievement is not just about the number of attendance, but also the quality of the science. I heard many of our delegates saying that it is a great meeting, great science. So in that sense, we are also very much grateful for all the speakers. We have more than 350 speakers for this meeting. They did make a great effort to make the conference even better in term of science, in term of quality, so we are very grateful. Thanks all of our delegates again.”
For more details, please watch the interview video (Figure 1).
Acknowledgements
None.
Footnote
Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.
References
- He CX. Presidential remarks: WCLC 2017, a successful conference with record-breaking attendance and high scientific quality. Asvide 2017;4:515. Available online: http://www.asvide.com/articles/1834
[Science Editor: Chao-Xiu(Melanie) He, TLCR, tlcr@amepc.org]
