History of the European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress

Abstract

The European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress originally started as a Swiss-Japanese joint conference on cerebral aneurysm. The Congress was held in Zürich, Switzerland, from 5–7 May 2001 with Prof. Y. Yonekawa of Zürich and Prof. Y. Sakurai of Sendai as the presidents.

Three years later, in July of 2004, the second meeting was held at Zürich again with wide-ranging conference topics on cerebral stroke surgery.

The third meeting at Zürich in 2006 was the key congress for future development. The conference was expanded to the European-Japanese Joint Conference for Stroke Surgery.

As the year of 2006 was the 70th Anniversary of the Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Zürich, Prof. Krayenbühl, Prof. Yasargil, and Prof. Yonekawa introduced the impressive history of the Department of Neurosurgery at the conference.

At the fourth European-Japanese Joint Conference on Stroke Surgery we moved from Zürich to the Nordic city of Helsinki, with Prof. Juha Hernesniemi as the conference president.

The fifth joint conference was held at Düsseldolf am Rein with Prof. Hans-Jakob Steiger as the Conference president.

The sixth conference, named “The European-Japanese Stroke Surgery Conference” (EJSSC), was held in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Professor Luca Regli and Prof. Gabriel Rinkel were the conference presidents.

The seventh European-Japanese Stroke Surgery Conference (EJSSC) was held in Verona, Italy with the presidents Prof. Alberto Pasqualin and Prof. Giampietro Pinna.

The eighth European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC) came back to Zürich in the year 2016 with Prof. Luca Regli as the president.

The ninth European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC) was held in the historical room of Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda Milan, Italy, with Prof. Marco Cenzato as the president.

The tenth European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC) will be held in Kyoto. It will be the first meeting of the EJCVC in Japan.

Publication of the proceeding books of the conference as supplements of ACTA Neurochirurgica is one of the main reasons that we have been able to continue this conference for almost 20 years. We sincerely thank Prof. Steiger for his continuous and generous cooperation as the series Editor of ACTA Neurochirurgica.

The European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress originally started as a Swiss-Japanese joint conference on cerebral aneurysm. The Congress was held in Zürich, Switzerland, from 5–7 May 2001 with Prof. Y. Yonekawa of Zürich and Prof. Y. Sakurai of Sendai as the presidents.

At that time, Japanese National Hospitals received Health Sciences Research Grants for Medical Frontier Strategy Research from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare regarding multi-center studies on the treatment of unruptured cerebral aneurysms. Since an international cooperative study was organized between Prof. Yonekawa of the Department of Neurosurgery of Zürich University and Japanese National Hospitals, the congress was planned as a research meeting for the theme.

The first day offered a unique opportunity to gather European and Japanese neurosurgeons to discuss the treatment of unruptured cerebral aneurysms. Presentation of these new clinical experiences facilitated intensive discussions in order to clarify updated and appropriate ways to focus the treatment. The second day provided updated information on neurocritical care as well as endovascular and surgical treatment modalities carried out in daily practice in Zürich and Japan. Roundtable discussions encouraged interactive communication between the participants and faculties (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the first meeting: Yonekawa Y, Sakurai E, Keller E, Tsukahara T, eds. New Trends in Cerebral Aneurysm Management. ACTA Neurochirurgica Supplement 82. Springer-Verlag/Wien; 2002. (b). Prof. Y. Yonekawa of Zürich and Prof. Y. Sakurai of Sendai in the Saal of Zurich University at the first meeting (c)

Three years later, in July of 2004, the second meeting was also held at Zürich, with wide-ranging conference topics on cerebral stroke surgery.

The first day was to discuss the treatment of cerebral aneurysms and subarachnoid hemorrhage.

The discussion on the second day focused on the treatment of intracranial arteriovenous malformations, and discussion on the third day was on cerebral revascularization (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the second conference: Yonekawa Y, Sakurai E, Keller E, Tsukahara T, eds. New Trends for Stroke and its Perioperative Management. Acta Neurochirurgica Supplement 94. Springer-Verlag/Wien; 2005. (b)

Publication of the proceedings books of the conference as supplements of ACTA Neurochirurgica is one of the main reasons we have been able to continue this conference for almost 20 years. We sincerely thank Prof. Steiger for his continuous and generous cooperation as the series Editor of ACTA Neurochirurgica.

The third meeting at Zürich in 2006 was the key congress for future development. The conference was expanded to the European-Japanese Joint Conference for Stroke Surgery (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the third conference: Yonekawa Y, Tsukahara T, Valavanis A, Khan N, eds. Changing Aspects in Stroke Surgery: Aneurysms, Dissections, Moyamoya Angiopathy and EC-IC Bybass. ACTA Neurochirurgica Supplement 103. Springer-Verlag/Wien; 2008. (b)

As the year of 2006 was the 70th Anniversary of the Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Zürich, Prof. Krayenbühl, Prof. Yasargil, and Prof. Yonekawa introduced the impressive history of the Department of Neurosurgery at the conference. We were all impressed by the contribution of Zürich University to the development of neurosurgery in Europe, Japan, and throughout the world.

Symposiums on the treatment of moya moya disease, aneurysms, AVM, and AVF were held at the same time.

The AVM randomized trial (ARUBA) was introduced by Prof. J. P. Mohr of New York. Professor A. Valavanis of Zürich gave a lecture on the endovascular treatment of AVM, and Prof. E. Motti of Milano gave a lecture on AVM treatment using Gamma knife. An epidemiological survey of dural AV fistula in Japan was described by Prof. N. Kuwayama of Toyama.

The natural history and annual rupture rate of unruptured intracranial aneurysms were discussed by Prof. M. Yonekura of Nagasaki.

At the fourth European-Japanese Joint Conference on Stroke Surgery we moved from Zürich to the beautiful Nordic city of Helsinki, with Prof. Juha Hernesniemi as the conference president. The participants presented papers and discussed surgery for cerebral aneurysms and the management of subarachnoid hemorrhage and stroke, arterial dissection, intracranial arteriovenous malformations, and fistulas. Microsurgical extra-intracranial bypass surgery and revascularization techniques were also discussed. On the same occasion, we visited Prof. Hernesniemi’s world-famous operating room in Helsinki (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the fourth conference: Laakso A, Hernesniemi J, Yonekawa Y, Tsukahara T, eds. Surgical Management of Cerebrovascular Disease. Acta Neurochirurgica Supplement 107. Springer-Verlag/Wien; 2010. (b)

The fifth joint conference was held at Düsseldolf am Rein with Prof. Hans-Jakob Steiger as the conference president. Management of cerebral and ventricular hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, extra-intracranial bypass surgery, surgical and endovascular treatment of arterial occlusive disease, and embolization and microsurgery of AVM and dural AV-fistula were the main themes. Special topics of the conference were cerebral and ventricular hemorrhage and cerebral vascular reconstruction. In order to strengthen the focus on new trends, an open invitation for submission was made. A number of emerging concepts were presented and discussed in the resulting meeting (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the fifth conference: Tsukahara T. Regli L, Hänggi D, Turowski B, Steiger H-J, eds. Trends in Neurovascular Surgery. Acta Neurochirurgica Supplement 112. Springer-Verlag/Wien; 2011. S (b)

The sixth conference, named “The European-Japanese Stroke Surgery Conference” (EJSSC), was held in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Professor Luca Regli and Prof. Gabriel Rinkel were the conference presidents. The main topics of the conference comprised surgical and endovascular management of intracranial aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations; current concepts in cerebrovascular reconstruction; and new developments in cerebrovascular imaging. A number of emerging concepts were also presented and discussed at this meeting (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the sixth conference: Tsukahara T, Esposito G, Steiger H-J, Rinkel GJE, Regli L, eds. Trends in Neurovascular Interventions. Acta Neurochirurgica Supplement 119. Springer-Verlag/Wien; 2014. (b)

The seventh European-Japanese Stroke Surgery Conference (EJSSC) was held in the beautiful city of Verona, Italy with Presidents Prof. Alberto Pasqualin and Prof. Giampietro Pinna. The main topics of the conference were surgical and endovascular management of intracranial aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations and cerebrovascular reconstruction. We also enjoyed beautiful paintings by Veronese and opera at the ancient Arena de Verona (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the seventh conference: Tsukahara T, Pasqualin A, Esposito G, Regli L, Pinna G, eds. Trends in Cerebrovascular Surgery. Acta Neurochirurgica Supplement 123. Springer International Publishing Switzerland; 2016. (b)

The eighth European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC) came back to Zürich in the year 2016 with Prof. Luca Regli as the president. The main topics of the conference consisted of management of intracranial aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, cavernoma and dural arteriovenous fistulas, and hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke, current trends in cerebrovascular reconstruction and cerebrovascular neuroanatomy, and new concepts in cerebrovascular imaging.

At the same time, the Cerebral Blood Flow Meeting and Microsurgery Course Zürich were organized (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8

Conference program (a) and the proceedings book of the eighth conference: Esposito G, Regli L, Kaku Y, Tsukahara T, eds. Trends in the Management of Cerebrovascular Diseases. Acta Neurochirurgica Supplement 129. Springer International Publising; 2018. (b)

The ninth European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC) was held in the historical room of Grande Ospedale Metropolitano Niguarda Milan, Italy, on 7–9 June 2018, with Prof. Marco Cenzato as the president. The main theme of the congress was preventive cerebrovascular surgery. A number of emerging concepts were presented and discussed by European and Japanese participants. Very fruitful presentations and discussions will be published as the proceedings book of ACTA Neurochirurgica Supplement, the same as with previous meetings (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9

Program of ninth conference

The tenth European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC) will be held in Kyoto, Japan with Prof. Tetsuya Tsukahara and Prof. Yasuhiko Kaku as the presidents. Due to the pandemic crisis of Covid-19, the 10^th EJCVC in Kyoto has been postponed to November 2021.

It will be the first meeting in Japan of the European-Japanese Cerebrovascular Congress (EJCVC). A number of European and Japanese participants will be expected to join the congress and have fruitful discussions on New Trends of Cerebrovascular treatment.