LAUSR

Upon conclusion of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Apheresis, held at Tokyo DisneySea Hotel Miracosta (Urayasu City, Chiba) from October 19 (Thursday) to 21 (Saturday), 2017, I wish to extend my gratitude to all the people who participated. The Meeting featured presentations on over 200 themes, including one special lecture, one lecture in the JSFA President-Organizing Symposium, one lecture in the Apheresis Manual Lecture, eight lectures in the luncheon seminar, eight lectures at the Technical Session, 10 lectures at the Asian Session, 11 lectures at the JSFA-Organizing Symposium, and 127 presentations in general sessions. The meeting concluded successfully, attracting a total of 932 participants. The Japanese Society for Apheresis (JSFA) was born in 1981 as the Japanese Society for Therapeutic Plasmapheresis (JSTP), and has operated as JSFA since 1992. Having been assigned to take charge of JSFA’s Annual Meeting with a long history, I set its theme as “Therapeutic Apheresis for Intractable Diseases: Positioning in the Guidelines.” The President-Organizing Symposium under the theme of “Attempting to establish the JSFA guidelines for various intractable diseases” invited Hidenori Matsuo and Takaya Abe, who are involved in the development of JSFA guidelines, Hiromichi Kuwabara to contribute legal perspectives, and Tamaoki Jun, who was involved in the establishment of guidelines for the Japanese Respiratory Society, to hear valuable opinions of different types and fields, including focuses for guideline development. The Symposium marked a major step forward in compiling guidelines for therapeutic apheresis, which is undergoing unique development in Japan. The Annual Meeting also invited author Motohiko Izawa, who gave a special lecture titled “The history of humanity from the perspectives of food and agriculture,” covering agriculture as the foundation of humanity, food, and their close association with the human race from historical perspectives. In the Apheresis Manual Lecture, Hiromichi Yamada focused on the category of dermatology, and described safe and effective methods for therapeutic apheresis, targeting junior doctors, nurses and clinical engineers. The JSFA Symposium was divided into 11 sections, namely (1) Apheresis treatment for vasculitis, (2) New perspectives in the use of apheresis treatment for kidney disease, (3) Harvesting of blood cells for hematology and blood transfusions, (4) Apheresis treatment for refractory skin diseases, (5) Apheresis treatment for collagen diseases, (6) Apheresis treatment for autoimmune encephalitis and myelitis, (7) The current positioning of CAP as a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease and other efforts, (8) Intensive care related matters, (9) Acute hemocatharsis, (10) The positioning of LDL apheresis treatment in the field of lipid abnormalities and arteriosclerosis, and (11) Evidence for apheresis treatment in the field of pediatric medicine. The chair of each of the sections described the latest topics in their respective fields, and how therapeutic apheresis is used to treat intractable diseases in various categories.