The 4th Conference of the International Federation of Placental Associations, Tokyo, Japan, 1-3 October 1998

Abstract

Tokyo Medical College Hospital was the venue for the fourth IFPA meeting which was held in conjunction with the sixth Conference of the Japanese Placenta Association and the sixteenth Annual Meeting on Trophoblastic Diseases. The Medical College is located in the Shinjuku area of the city, close to the JR Station and next door to the Tokyo Hilton Hotel where many of the participants stayed. The meeting was truly international in attracting over 200 participants from 26 different countries. With 32 plenary lectures, three distinguished guest speakers and two educational seminars, 12 workshops with some 82 speakers and 124 poster presentations, the meeting was a great success for all participants. The President of the meeting was Professor Masaomi Takayama who organized it in conjunction with colleagues and several medical students, all based at the Tokyo Medical College Hospital. Professor Takayama opened the meeting, the main theme of which was ‘the control mechanism of proliferation and invasive function of placental trophoblastic cells’. In his opening remarks he emphasized that these topics were the main subjects of both participating study groups and he talked about the importance of human pregnancy in archaeological times. Indeed, the logo of the meeting was a Jamon clay figure depicting a pregnant woman from the Sapporo area of Japan dating back to around 2000 years . The scientific program was professionally arranged and each section was chaired by two eminent chairpersons, invariably one from the host country and one from abroad. It was fitting that the first session of the scientific meeting was initiated by Professor Hiroaki Soma, a distinguished long-standing member of both the IFPA and the JPA. His lecture dealt with the identification of Gaucher cells in the chorionic villi associated with recurrent hydrops fetalis. Although Gaucher’s disease is rare in the Japanese population (1 : 500 000), placental examination is advised in order to detect the risk of recurrence in subsequent pregnancies. Professor Peter Kaufmann followed with a talk on the pathology of trophoblast invasion using his now legendary cascades of superimposed overhead projections. As with any subject he tackles, the lecture was clear and the audience was