Obituary for Osamu Kato (1946-2014)

s untimely death will ultimately leave a void with those who were fortunate to know him personally and those who worked with him professionally. Dr. Kato leaves behind a lasting legacy as a clinician, administrator and mentor in the field of reproductive medicine and will be remembered as a pioneer and statesman in the developments of natural and mild stimulation cycle IVF, vitrification of unfertilized embryos and oocyte banking for cancer patients, all the while remaining a beloved colleague and friend. Dr. Kato is survived by his wife, Takako, and two children Sakiko and Dr. Keiichi Kato. Dr. Kato was born in Kanazawa in 1946. There he went on to attend Komatsu High School, and he was educated at Kanazawa University, School of Medicine in Kanazawa and received his medical degree with honours in March 1972. in Mexico where they started a collaboration with expertise in reproductive Medicine. From there, he began his work with his first IVF clinic, Towako Maternity Clinic of Komatsu, in November 1990. He moved to Tokyo in October 1993 and opened the Kato Ladies Clinic. It was here that Dr. Kato started to make innovative contributions to the rapidly growing field of reproductive medicine. He spearheaded new approaches in the treatment of clomiphene citrate ovarian stimulation and natural cycle IVF. During 20 years Dr. Kato established IVF clinics for natural cycle and minimal stimulation IVF, seven of which were established in Japan and four abroad, in Shanghai, New York, Irvine California and Manila. Since 1978, In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer (IVF-ET) have come to be practiced all over the world. At the same time, Assisted Reproductive Technology has continued to make progress by leaps and bounds with better results. Various revolutionary techniques have been developed, solving even those problems that had been thought impossible to remedy. However, in regards to ovarian stimulation, protocols have not improved greatly, save for the use of different drugs. In the past, Dr. Kato's clinic also performed egg recovery in stimulated cycles. However, even though there had been no cases of severe OHSS, he encountered a case in which a patient developed loss of consciousness that seemed to be attributed to thrombosis. Since then he began to have doubts about stimulation cycles when the fertilization rate was poor despite the recovery of many eggs. He felt " doubts about the meaning of recovering a lot of eggs " , …