Chronology of Regional Meetings

A meeting-by-meeting record of the annual Asian neuro-oncology gatherings — the cities, the hosts, and the milestones — drawn from the public scientific record.

The meetings, year by year

• 1st — Kumamoto, Japan (November 2002). President Prof. Yukitaka Ushio; honorary presidents Profs. Kil Soo Choi and Kintomo Takakura. 142 papers from five countries (Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Turkey). Read more about the founding meeting.
• 2nd — Seoul, Korea (December 2003). President Prof. Jong-Hyun Kim. 231 papers, with early participation from Malaysia and Singapore.
• 3rd — Shanghai, China (November 2004). President Prof. Liang-Fu Zhou. Held jointly with the 3rd Shanghai International Conference of Neurosurgery; 582 papers and 729 participants.
• 4th — Taipei, Taiwan (November 2005). President Prof. Tai-Tong Wong. 153 papers, with new participants from the Philippines, India, Australia and Indonesia.
• 5th — Istanbul, Turkey (November 2007). President Prof. Kaya Aksoy.
• 6th — Yokohama, Japan (2009). Held jointly with the 3rd Quadrennial Meeting of the World Federation of Neuro-Oncology; India, the Philippines and Hong Kong joined the group.
• 7th — Suwon, Korea (2010). Meeting president Prof. Kyung Gi Cho.
• 8th — Suzhou, China (2011). Meeting president Prof. Zhong-ping Chen.
• 9th — Taipei, Taiwan (2012). Meeting president Prof. Ham-Min Tseng.
• 10th — Mumbai, India (2013). Meeting president Prof. Rakesh Jalali; about 650 participants. The Australian neuro-oncology community joined around this meeting.
• 11th — Istanbul, Turkey (2014). Meeting president Prof. Turker Kilic.
• 12th — Manila, Philippines (2015). Meeting president Prof. Manuel Mariano.
• 13th — Sydney/Melbourne, Australia (2016). Meeting president Prof. Mark Rosenthal; held jointly with the 9th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian cooperative trials group.
• 14th — Osaka, Japan (2017). Meeting president Prof. Yuichi Hirose.
• 15th — Beijing, China (2018).

Reading the timeline

Two patterns stand out. First, the meeting rotated deliberately among countries, spreading hosting responsibility and local engagement across the region. Second, several gatherings were held jointly — with the World Federation of Neuro-Oncology in 2009, and with national meetings in Shanghai and Australia — reflecting a consistent preference for collaboration over isolation.

Why the record is preserved

Conference programmes are among the most perishable documents in science: they are printed for a single event and rarely archived. Preserving even a skeletal chronology helps trainees and historians understand how the regional field matured. For biographical context on the meeting presidents, see past presidents; for the journals where this research ultimately appeared, see key publications.