Welcome Message
Hikaru Tomoe
（Professor, Department of Urology and Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery, Tokyo Women’s Medical University Medical Center East, Tokyo, Japan）
Osamu Ishizuka
（Professor, Department of Urology, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan）
Dear Colleagues,
I am honored to be hosting the 15th Annual Meeting of the Pan-Pacific Continence Society (PPCS 2021).
Due to the COVID-19 disaster, we were forced to move the 15th PPCS in Tokyo 2020 to Matsumoto in 2021.
As the PPCS is always held in combination with the JCS, the position of president of the 15th PPCS will be shared between Professor Osamu Ishizuka, president of the 28th JCS, and I.
The meeting of PPCS will be held from the afternoon of the 11th (Sat.) to the evening of the 12th (Sun.) on September.
The meeting venue is the hotel Buena Vista, which is located a 7-minute walk away from Matsumoto station.
The two main themes of the PPCS this year are “Female Urology” and “Underactive Bladder”. The advances in medicine go hand in hand with the development of treatment. The perception of overactive bladder (OAB) rapidly evolved after the new anticholinergic drug release in 2006 and further advanced after the launch of β3- adrenoceptor agonist in 2011. Additionally, intravesical botulinum toxin injection and sacral nerve modulation are also beneficial for treating refractory OAB.
Firstly, in Female Urology, mesh complication rate of midurethral sling surgery and transvaginal mesh surgery is not zero and they are exposed to headwind after the FDA alert of 2011, but female urology of the last 20 years has certainly been greatly enhanced by those mesh operations. In recent years, the number of laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy has rapidly increased, but that too is not perfect.
Secondly, the biggest challenge is UAB. UAB patients, unlike OAB patients, have few subjective symptoms, so, how to diagnose and prevent at an early stage?
I love the phrase “God is in the details”. I think that the results may change following detailed observations and accumulated attention to patient consultations and operations. The combination of inspiration from detailed observations and excellent basic research will give birth to state of the art discovery in treatment and we shall send them from the Pan-Pacific to the world.
The meeting will be a “hybrid-style” meeting, with most Japanese participants attending on-site and foreign participants attending virtually.
Please save the dates and I’m looking forward to seeing you all from Matsumoto in September!