The Upcoming 55th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society
for Dialysis Therapy

The 55^th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy will be held in Kobe from Friday June 18 to Sunday June 20, 2010. I hope as many of you as possible will attend, and I look forward to receiving many applications for conference presentations.

The milestones in dialysis therapy are, in my opinion, Kolff's development of the artificial kidney, the establishment of chronic dialysis therapy by Scribner, and Gotch's theoretical approach to dialysis quantification. Scribner's hemodialysis system, first used in a clinical setting in the 1960s, became the standard method for dialysis therapy, employing vascular access, dialyzer, dialysis fluid, anticoagulants, dialysate purification techniques and everything found in the modern dialysis machine. Chronic dialysis therapy has since been taken up throughout the world, and Japan too has seen a dramatic increase in the number of facilities offering this treatment. Scribner's system was introduced at our own hospital in 1967 and has been used to this day. But while it is certainly true that subsequent advances in individual techniques and measures for dealing with complications have enabled many more patients to benefit from dialysis, and also pushed up survival rates, the basic features of dialysis therapy have not changed since Scribner's time. Moreover, it is still an imperfect treatment, and to fill in the gaps an excessive burden is placed on individual patients in the form of self-management.

To overcome the problems faced by dialysis patients, dialysis science must continue to develop in the future. For example, we prescribe diet control for the many patients who suffer from hyperphosphatemia, but this problem could be solved at once by daily dialysis. Of course, at present daily dialysis cannot be delivered to all those patients who may need it, and has so far only been available to selected patients. The solution to this problem will require the development of new dialysis machines and self-puncture devices, as well as reform of Japan's medical insurance system. In other words, as science develops, the patient's burden and distress will diminish. The theme of this conference is therefore 'advancing the life-giving potential of dialysis science'.

From the 20th century onwards scientific developments have contributed much to human happiness, and despite some soul-searching debate in recent years, this continues to be true. Using the artificial organ approach, dialysis therapy has supported the lives of many people who lack kidney function, and in the future we must be single-minded in our journey down this path. As science advances new horizons endlessly appear, and I believe it is our duty as scientists to head in a straight line towards the next horizon. I shall be happy if the 55^th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy serves as a step along that path.

I look forward to a conference of lively discussion and debate in Kobe.