The First Meeting — Kumamoto, 2002

Every enduring scientific community has a founding moment. For neuro-oncology in Asia, that moment was a single meeting in Kumamoto, Japan, in November 2002.

A meeting to propose a society

The first regional gathering was, in part, a meeting about whether to hold meetings at all. In November 2001, the inaugural meeting of the World Federation of Neuro-Oncology had been held in Washington, D.C., bringing together international and regional societies — among them the North American and European associations and several national Asian societies. The idea that animated Kumamoto was simple but powerful: rather than attend such global gatherings as scattered individual countries, the neuro-oncology communities of Asia could represent themselves as a single block, strengthening their voice and their ability to collaborate.

Who gathered, and what was shared

The meeting was held under the presidency of Prof. Yukitaka Ushio of Kumamoto University Medical School, with honorary presidents Prof. Kil Soo Choi of Seoul and Prof. Kintomo Takakura of Tokyo. It drew 142 scientific presentations from five countries and regions — Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Turkey. From the outset the programme balanced two goals: sharing original research on the diagnosis, treatment, pathology and biology of brain tumours, and offering educational lectures that gave participants a shared grounding in the standards of the field.

Why it mattered

The Kumamoto meeting set the template for everything that followed. It established the rotating, host-led model in which each year a different country would stage the gathering; it built early ties to the global neuro-oncology community; and it created a habit of meeting that would carry the field across two decades and more than a dozen countries. From these beginnings grew the wider story told across this archive. For the full sweep, see the chronology of meetings, the presidents who hosted them, and the broader history.