Messages from Kennichi Kakudo, MD, PhD to a person to be an expert of the cytopathology

Education in medical school should be the same among countries and medical science should be the same in any countries. However, medical practice is not the same among countries due to different economic condition and different ratial back ground. I found one more important factor impacts on clinical managements of patients, and it was different logic and way of thinking among us. I wrote how it was different between Asian countries’ practice and western countries’ practice in the following two publications. I believe these differences count very much for patients. They are free access and please visit them if you are interested in.

1. Kakudo K, Higuchi M, Horokawa M et al.: Thyroid FNA cytology in Asian practice – Active surveillance for indeterminate thyroid nodules reduces overtreatment of thyroid carcinomas. Cytopathology 2017; Nov 2. doi: 10.1111/cyt.12491. [Epub ahead of print]

2. Kakudo K: How to handle borderline/precursor thyroid tumors in management of patients with thyroid nodules. Gland Surg 2017. doi: 10.21037/gs.2017.08.02

I would like to share with you about my recent news from China, http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Kvr9fAy2TFvH08GLSuwLWQ .  It is a great honor to have such a prestigious award, Qilu Friendship Award, from Shandon province. During my 20 years chairmanship of Department of Human Pathology, Wakayama Medical University, I received 11 Chinese PhD students, visited Shandon University more than 10 times and promoted in exchange medical students between the 2 universities. I am happy to know these efforts were appreciated in this friendship award.

The Working Group of Asian Thyroid FNA Cytology had several projects and one of them become visible.  I would like to announce a special issue of Journal of Pathology and Translational Medicine on Current Practices of Thyroid Fine-Needle Aspiration in Asia (http://jpatholtm.org/current/?vol=51&no=6​).  Nine authors from our Working Group published their practices introducing their practice in details. I believe this special issue will be a good sources in the future when refere thyroid practice in Asian countries.

The second edition of the Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology was released from Springer recently. I am happy to be a co-author with Professor Layfield in a chapter, Metastatic Tumors, Lymphomas and Rare Tumors of the Thyroid.