Prof. Hitoshi Fujiwara: experience in performing lymph node dissection

The 7^th Zhongshan Minimally Invasive Forum was successfully held in Zhongshan Hospital, Shanghai Fudan University, China from May 5^th to May 7^th. This forum focused on the hop topics in thoracic surgery, especially in lung dissection, uniportal thoracic surgery and minimally invasive esophageal surgery etc. During this conference, Prof. Hitoshi Fujiwara gave a great presentation on: “lymph node dissection through mediastinosopy for esophageal cancer”. The editorial team of Journal of Thoracic Disease (JTD) had the great honor to have an interview with Prof. Fujiwara at the second day of conference (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Prof. Hitoshi Fujiwara and science editor Tracy Zhang.

Prof. Fujiwara graduated from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in 1989. Then he had spent 4 years in Graduate school of KPUM to study the cancer immunotherapy from 1994 to 1998. During this period, he also served as the Visiting Research Fellow at Sapporo Medical University to have further investigation in cancer gene therapy. Now he becomes the Chief of Esophageal Surgery Section, the Associate Professor of Division of Digestive Surgery, Department of Surgery, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine. His major research interests include surgical technique for minimally invasive esophagectomy and multimodal treatment for esophageal cancer.

In the interview, Prof. Fujiwara told us that the 3-field lymph node dissection is a standard procedure in esophageal cancer surgery and it can definitely improve the survival of patients. But he also pointed out that this dissection is not acceptable for all patients as they have different general condition. For example, patients with heart disease or poor lung function are not suitable to undergo such a dissection.

At the end of the interview, Prof. Fujiwara shared his recent research progress to us. He said that the thoracoscopic esophagectomy and the mediastinoscopic esophagectomy have good prognosis and lower incidence of complications in lung. Now let’s enjoy the interview (Figure 2) (https://youtu.be/cuKLBgV6INo).

Figure 2 Prof. Hitoshi Fujiwara: experience in performing the lymph node dissection (1). Available online: http://www.asvide.com/articles/1152

Acknowledgements

None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

1. Zhang T. Prof. Hitoshi Fujiwara: experience in performing lymph node dissection. Asvide 2016;3:388. Available online: http://www.asvide.com/articles/1152

(Science Editor: Tracy Zhang, JTD, jtd@amepc.org)