Breakthroughs in the Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Celebrating 50 Years of the Liver Cancer Study Group of Japan

Carcinoma’, to celebrate the breakthrough made by Prof. Honjo as well as the numerous breakthroughs in treatments for liver cancer made in the intervening 50 years. The congress program was packed with special features: The 50th Liver Cancer Study Group of Japan (LCSGJ) Congress (Congress President: Prof. Masatoshi Kudo) was held in Kyoto, Japan, on June 5–6, 2014. The LCSGJ is an academic society which was founded in 1967 by Dr. Ichio Honjo, Professor of the Department of Surgery at Kyoto University. On March 7, 1949, while working at Kokura Memorial Hospital, Prof. Honjo ( fig. 1 ), at the young age of 35, became the first surgeon in the world to successfully perform an anatomical right lobectomy. Although the Japanese journal Shujutsu ( Operation) published this breakthrough in 1950 [1] , because it was not published in an English language journal until 1955 [2] , there was a period in which articles cited the surgical technique performed by Lortat-Jacob [3] as the world’s first anatomical right lobectomy. However, in the global history of liver surgery, Prof. Honjo is now well recognized as the pioneer who successfully completed the procedure first ( fig. 2 , 3 ) [4] . Prof. Honjo subsequently founded the LCSGJ and served as its first president in 1967. Largely due to the historical background, the LCSGJ maintained a head office at Kyoto University until 2008, when it moved to its current location, the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Kinki University (Head Office Representative: Prof. Masatoshi Kudo). The theme of the 50th LCSGJ Congress was selected as ‘Breakthroughs in the Management of Hepatocellular Published online: November 22, 2014