Report of the twelfth International Symposium of the Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research: Basic and Clinical Research in Breast Cancer.

Abstract

The 12th International Symposium of the Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research, entitled 'Basic and Clinical Research in Breast Cancer' was held from April 26 to 29, 1999, at the International Lecture Hall located in the Tsukiji campus of the National Cancer Center (NCC), Tokyo. The organizing committee members were Kaoru Abe (Chairman, NCC), Kent Osborne (University of Texas at San Antonio), Toru Watanabe (NCC), Takashi Fukutomi (NCC), Minako Nagao (Tokyo University of Agliculture) and Ken Yamaguchi (NCC). Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death among females, especially in Western countries. Although its incidence in Japan is still relatively low, an increasing trend has been manifest over recent decades. This symposium was designed to hughlight the current problems of the disease from both basic and clinical viewpoints and to give researchers a chance to try to solve them. The first day was opened with a welcome address and an introduction by Takashi Sugimura (NCC) and an opening address by Kent Osborne, followed by a keynote address entitled 'Is Japanese breast cancer different?' by Kaoru Abe. Based on his 40 years of experience as an endocrine oncologist, Abe mentioned drastic changes in lifestyles in Japan after World War II that were characterized by 'westernization'. These changes brought to Japanese women a prolongation of lifespan, early menarche and late menopause with increase in breast cancer incidence. He emphasized the importance of primary treatments of breast cancer, explaining how difficult it was to cure the spread of the disease in spite of the recent developments in chemoand hormonotherapy.