Welcome everybody to the SSO 2020. We are so pleased that so many of you have registered and are participating. On behalf of the Society of Surgical Oncology and the SSO Executive Council, we thank you for your dedication to the society. This year's meeting looks a lot different than what we had intended than the in-person meeting we'd planned in Boston, but the registration numbers are extremely strong, clearly demonstrating the engagement and passion of the global surgical oncology community. We are a social group and this adaptation has been challenging, but challenge is what gets us surgeons up every morning. This year's meeting theme is Push Progress Further Together. It's a perfect title for the times and showcases all of our commitment to the profession of surgical oncology and our pursuit to continue our efforts amid a global pandemic. So just a little bit about our journey. We were extremely excited about Boston. We had a record registration that was going to be basically our busiest meeting yet in terms of attendance. We had completely re-imagined this meeting with a special industry engagement platform called The Hub. But in early March, it became clear that we were in trouble. I think credit to our staff before other meetings and other organizations had really even thought about what was going to happen, we were on the ball and already deciding to postpone our annual meeting. We did this at a time when we felt like August was going to be free and clear. We reorganized everything, we changed everything to August, planning on the in-person meeting in Boston, changed all our reservations, going to continue to debut the SSO Hub. But then as you all know, those plans didn't quite work out either. In late June, early July, became clear that any in-person meeting was not going to be possible. In credit to the executive committee and the executive council, the decision was easily made that we needed to move to a virtual meeting. It was never really considered for us to cancel the meeting. There's too much excitement around what we do and what we have, and we quickly decided to reimagine it into a virtual platform. This will be free to the members and it will be on demand for 30 days, and we're excited about what this represents. The SSO Executive Committee and the Scientific Program Committee put a lot of thought and consideration into paring down the over 108 hours of educational content that was planned for the Boston meeting. In the end, the live portion of the program takes place today and tomorrow, starting with two invited lecturers each day by leading members of our community. The inclusion of all abstracts was prioritized and the plenary and parallel sessions have been reworked into the new virtual forum sessions. In addition, the session recordings plus eight top-rated videos and all posters will be available on-demand on this platform for the next 30 days. Each day closes out with an independent satellite symposia session. The topics and faculty for each sound great. Please participate in these programs. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the SSO has worked with members of its eight disease site working groups to develop a series of resources focused on the management and treatment of the cancer patient, including seven written documents, six podcasts, which are part of the SSO's new podcast series, Surgeon Today, eight virtual tumor boards, six hot zone video interviews with SSO practicing surgeons and fellows. I think the society has really stepped up to respond to this pandemic in a functional way and to help our members. We're excited about that and proud about that. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the society understands the importance of continuing to provide members with educational opportunities on a regular basis. Therefore, the SSO Education Council and staff are in the process of executing the society's 2020 online education plan, which includes the following 76 new online educational initiatives, including SSO 2020 virtual meeting. 68% of the activities will be accredited, offering participants the opportunity to earn over 40 hours of CME and or self-assessment credits. Activities to include the following, new Surgeon Today podcasts, new SSO virtual tumor board series, ASO journal CME and manuscript reviewer credits, virtual video interviews, case-based panel discussions, debates, case vignettes, and roundtable discussions. Webinars, including those specifically designed for SSO breast fellows and CGSO video conference series. I invite you to take advantage of all SSO's online education and the virtual meeting have to offer and immerse yourself in this week's scientific program. I'm pleased to introduce now this year's Scientific Program Committee Chair, Dr. Herb Zay. He's reorganized and reimagined this meeting at least a dozen times now and has provided the necessary leadership to make this meeting success. And we thank him for all his efforts. Dr. Zay. Thanks, Dave. I am certainly appreciative of the society's trust in organizing this committee and being the chair of the Scientific Program Committee for 2020. What a year it has been. First, I want to thank a few important people who have helped get this meeting ready for all of you. First, the local arrangements committee. As you pointed out, we had two attempts to have this onsite in Boston. And a lot of effort by many members of the local arrangements committee are greatly appreciated. We know that Boston is a great venue for our organization and we look forward to joining you all in person again there in the near future. Our meeting as it has been over the last several years has evolved into an international conference on surgical cancer care. This year is no different. Members representing 61 different countries will have access to the virtual meeting. We have oral abstract presenters from 10 different countries, poster abstracts from presenters representing 18 different countries. We are also pleased for the return of the global partner posters program. 23 posters representing top abstracts from our eight international partner society meetings are available on demand. What does this year's meeting look like? We had an enormous number of submissions, record number, 749. This includes 141 oral abstracts that were accepted with a 20% acceptance rate, 379 e-poster abstracts, nine video abstracts. And importantly, the scientific program committee felt for the virtual meeting a commitment to all those who took the time to do the work to have their work presented to their peers. And so all abstracts are included in the virtual meeting this year. And we're very pleased that we were able to arrange that. Want to make sure I thank our scientific program committee for this year. Double efforts, sometimes triple efforts. This group worked tirelessly to make sure that the program was the best educational opportunity that we can offer. And we're very pleased and thankful for you to join us during this virtual conference. I also want to recognize the disease site working groups. The disease site working groups work hand in hand with the scientific program committee to make sure that the content of our meeting is the very top cutting edge and important information for our members to know. Want to make sure that everybody saves the date for SSO 2021, tentatively scheduled for March 17th through 20th in Chicago. It's really important and we ask all of you to please complete the brief survey included in the CMA survey link. We want to hear from you regarding live versus virtual formats, ideal timing and content offerings. We certainly thank you for your engagement. And we look forward to this virtual meeting and a chance for our community to gather again. One of the best parts of being past president of the SSO is the final assignment to chair the nominating committee. The task of this committee is to identify not only the future leaders of the SSO, but also to identify and honor past and present leaders in the field. In that context, when Dr. Masaki Mori's name was suggested to be the recipient of the 2020 Charles M. Balsh Distinguished Service Award, the decision of the committee was enthusiastic, immediate and unequivocally unanimous. Dr. Mori is the former chairman of surgery at Osaka University and the current chairman of surgery at Kyushu University. He has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to improving the surgical care of cancer patients in Japan and around the world. He has pioneered the development of minimally invasive surgery for upper and lower GI malignancy, and is especially interested in how this technology can be leveraged to extend its potential benefits into rural Japan. His basic science research is focused on the characterization of GI cancer stem cells and also on the early detection of RNA-based tumor markers of malignancy in the blood. He has published over 1,200 high-impact peer-reviewed papers in the English literature, including the Annals of Surgery, Lancet, JAMA Surgery and JAMA Oncology. His publications are as impactful as they are prolific. Five of his papers have been cited over 400 times, and 59 of his papers have been cited over 100 times. He has published 170 papers in the Annals of Surgical Oncology, 13 of which have been cited more than 50 times. In his role as Chairman of Surgery, he has trained over 220 fellows and residents to take over as the next generation of Japanese surgeons, surgeon-scientists and surgical oncologists. He has served as an advisor on multiple health and cancer care commissions within the Japanese government and has been the recipient of multiple national awards for excellence in clinical care, training and research. He has served as the President of the Japan Surgical Society and the Japanese Society of GI Surgery, as well as the Vice President of the Japanese Cancer Society and the Japan Association of Medical Sciences. He is also an honorary member of the American Surgical Association. He is a longstanding and active member of the SSO, having personally attended every single meeting since his first in New York in 1992, when Charles Balch was the President. He has served on the SSO Executive Council and currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Annals of Surgical Oncology. While President of the Japanese Society of GI Surgery, he was instrumental in working with SSO leadership to create and fund an exchange program between our two organizations for young surgical oncologists. In summary, Dr. Mori is a caring clinical surgeon, a superb and impactful cancer researcher, a tireless educator, and an absolutely superb role model for those who will follow in his footsteps. We are indeed honored to present him today with this year's 2020 SSO Charles M. Balch Distinguished Service Award. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor for me to be selected as the SSO 2020 Charles Balch Distinguished Service Award winner. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the organizing committee members of the SSO, including Professors David Bartlett, Daniel Coyt, and Professor Charles Balch. I first attended the annual meeting of the SSO in 1992, almost 30 years ago, when Charles Balch was the president of the meeting. My research work was fortunately accepted in the plenary session of the annual meeting that was held in New York City. Since then, it has been my great pleasure to participate in the annual meeting every year. I was able to make a lot of excellent friends through the SSO. When I became the president of the Japanese Society of Gastroenterological Surgery, JSGS, we started a collaboration between the SSO and the JSGS, and we enjoyed a joint symposium and the exchange program for the young surgical oncologists. The society actually nurtured my insight in medical sciences. Thank you again for your kind cooperation and consideration. Thank you.

virtual meeting

Society of Surgical Oncology

COVID-19 pandemic

surgical oncology community

Dr. Masaki Mori