Asia and Oceania Thyroid Association

This year’s ITC also featured the first Chester “Chip” Ridgway Training Course geared for young thyroidologists, coming from the ATA.  There was also a session on the History of the 4 Sister Societies with AOTA’s significant landmarks provided by AOTA Honorary President Shigenobu Nagataki of Japan.  A Panel Board photographs of goiter and other iodine deficiency disorders and of the men and women who contributed to the science of thyroidology since BCE era was displayed.  These provided ITC participants with information on important milestones in the course of many centuries since the thyroid gland was discovered to play role in human health.  (Download ATA website www.american thyroid association & click on Clark T. Sawin History Resource Center).

Prof Miyauchi is the President & COO of Kuma Hospital, Center for Excellence in Thyroid Care in Kobe, Japan. He is an endocrine surgeon, currently serving as Chairman of the Asian Association of Endocrine Surgeons, with special interest in thyroid diseases and an almost a thousand publications in English & Japanese journals on his work on thyroid cancer for more than 40 years. Prof Miyauchi’s topic was “Toward best management of thyroid cancer.”

AOTA has been giving Prize Lecture Awards since 1980.  Through the years, the Prize Lectures came under various names as defined by the sponsors. It was in 2010 during the 14^th International Thyroid Congress held in Paris, France, that a fusion of Prize Lecture Awards came about, given regardless of nationality.  The Prize Lecture has been named the NAGATAKI-FUJIFILM Prize.

The topics of the Prize Lectures have been very varied according to the field of interest or researches of the awardees.  The clinical dimensions of thyroid disease were the subject matter of most Prize Lectures, more frequently than basic & translational researches.   The favorites, in decreasing order, were Graves’ disease and its various facets, iodine deficiency and its effects; receptors, antibodies, genetic phenotypes; thyroid & pregnancy, neonatal screening, and thyroid cancer.  (A listing of the Prize Lecturers and their topics can be gleaned from the AOTA website.)

The 2015 Prize Lecturer joined a distinguished group of Prize Awardees from the Region.  He was the 6^th Awardee to speak on thyroid cancer and the 16^th Japanese to deliver the AOTA Prize Lecture.

The Awardee proposed calcitonin-doubling time and thyroglobulin-doubling time as potent prognostic factors for medullary and papillary thyroid carcinoma, respectively. These values provide important information for best managements of patients with these cancers. Furthermore he carefully studied the preservation and reconstruction of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in thyroid cancer surgery and is working for the implementation of intraoperative neural monitoring. Additionally he discovered a new pathological entity of thyroid cancer: Intrathyroidal epithelial thymoma (ITET) / CASTLE, and found the route of acute suppurative thyroiditis and named it pyriform sinus fistula.

Elected President was Takashi Akamizu (Japan) with Teofilo San Luis Jr (Philippines) and Wei Ping Teng (China) as Vice Presidents, Won Bae Kim (Korea) as Secretary, and Masanobu Yamada (Japan) as Treasurer and concurrent member of the Program Organizing Committee (POC).  The POC will be headed by Liu Chao (China) with Minho Shong (Korea) as another member.

Rejoining the new AOTA Council are Duncan Topliss (Australia), Fereidoun Azizi (Iran) and RV Jayakumar (India).  Coming in for the first time are Iwao Sugitani (Japan), Sun Wook Kim (Korea), Tjin-Shing Jap (Taiwan), Faridul Alam (Bangladesh) and Tjokorda Pemayun (Indonesia).

The Council will constitute a Task Force to go over AOTA’s Articles of Association (AoA) and propose amendments to guide AOTA in meeting the various challenges of the organization, notably in the area of membership and representation in the Council.  The last amendments to the AoA were introduced by the Council in November 2009.