Report of the Fourteenth International Symposium of the Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research: Pain Control, Palliative Medicine and Psycho-oncology.

Abstract

The Fourteenth International Symposium of the Foundation for the Promotion of Cancer Research, entitled ‘Pain Control, Palliative Medicine and Psycho-oncology: Present Status and Future Direction’, was held in Tokyo on January 24–26, 2001. The Chairman of the organizing Committee was Dr Tadao Kakizoe, Director, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. The Symposium was opened by a welcoming address given by Dr Takashi Sugimura. Dr Sugimura noted the unique nature of this particular Symposium being entirely devoted to the supportive care of the oncology patient. Previous Symposia have been devoted largely to basic and clinical research pertaining to the types of cancer and the organs involved (1–3). The Symposium is an acknowledgment of the fact that since 1981, cancer has been the primary cause of death in Japan. Currently, one out of every three deaths in Japan is due to cancer. Dr Kakizoe, in his keynote address, emphasized this point and noted the paradigmatic shift taking place in medical oncology from the pursuit of an ultimate cure of a disease to its palliative treatment when a cure appears to be impossible. This shift in emphasis has been occurring over the last 25 years and acknowledges the fact that ~50% of adult patients with cancer at the National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo will ultimately die of their disease or its complications. In view of this paradigmatic shift, the current Symposium ‘Pain Control, Palliative Medicine and Psycho-oncology: Present Status and Future Direction’ was devised.