At the inauguration of the Japan Esophageal Society.

Last June, I undertook the responsibility of dissolving the Japanese Society for Esophageal Diseases (JSED), which was founded by Prof. Kohmei Nakayama of Chiba University about 40 years ago and was served by four presidents, Hiroshi Sato, Teruo Kakegawa and myself. In place of this we developed a new organization, the Japan Esophageal Society (JES), composed of individual academic members, rather than an institution. The JSED took a step forward to hold an academic meeting (JES) this June, after a one-year period of preparation. In retrospect, the JSED was started in 1965 to study and research surgical therapy for esophageal cancer as its main theme, then subsequently developed markedly, and 72 institutions had already joined it by 1972. If we consider 1932, when Prof. Sadanobu Seo (Chiba University) submitted the assignment report of the Japan Surgical Society, to be the dawn of surgical therapy for esophageal cancer in Japan, Japanese esophageal surgical history could be approximately divided into three periods: the initial period from 1930 to 1960 (the period of improvement of direct operative mortality), the middle period from 1960 to 1980 (the period of improvement of postoperative complaints and introduction of modern diagnostic techniques), and the latter period from 1980 to 2000 [the period of improvement in survival rate and quality of life (QOL) of patients]. The JSED was, therefore, organized in the beginning of the middle period. At that time, direct operative mortality was 40% to 50%, and, whilst various reports were actively discussed among the various institutions of the JSED, it was very difficult to reach a conclusion from various opinions with no single specific set of rules. Therefore, in view of the need for discussing under a standard, “Guidelines for Clinical and Pathologic Studies on Carcinoma of the Esophagus” was made with much effort and time, and the JSED developed rapidly after that. In the latter period, direct operative mortality of esophAt the Inauguration of the Japan Esophageal Society