August 31-September 01, 1990; Fukuoka, Japan

Joichi Kumazawa

Organizing Chairman

The first Asian Congress of Urology was held from 31st August to 1st September, 1990 at the Hotel New Ohtani Hakata, Fukuoka Japan. The Urological Association of Asia (UAA) was founded at this 1st ACU meeting. It was a great pleasure and honor for me to be the first president of UAA and chairman of the first ACU.

For this 1st meeting, the organizing committee was composed of 17 Japanese and 9 members from other Asian countries. Japanese members were Drs Yoshio Aso, Hiroshi Tazaki, Kenkichi Koiso, Jun Shimazaki, Ryuichi Kitagawa, Seigi Tsuchida, Seiichi Origasa, Yoshiaki Kumamoto, Takao Sonoda, Eigoro Okajima, Osamu Yoshida, Kazuo Ohtaguro, Haruo Hisazumi, Yutaka Saito, Hiroyoshi Tanaka, Yukitoshi Fujita and I. The Asian members were Dr Chieh Ping Wu from China, Dr Kwok-Kee Wong from Hong-Kong, Dr Young Kyoon Kim from Korea, Dr Hussein Awang from Malaysia, Dr Verasing Muangman from Thailand, Dr Stephen TK Lim from Singapore, Dr Djoko Rahardjo from Indonesia, Dr Teong-Chang Tsai from Taiwan and Dr David A Abraham from the Philippines. I appreciate the many suggestions and advice that we received from these members.

Inaugurating the First Asian Congress of Urology

The main theme of the congress was bladder cancer. The topics of the symposium, special lecture and workshop were ‘Development of bladder cancer studies’, ‘Urinary diversion’ and ‘Bladder tumor’ respectively. A number of presentations focused on the status of bladder cancer in Asia. A special lecture on urinary diversion was presented by Professor Osamu Yoshida from Kyoto University. There were two workshops which included forty-five oral presentations on bladder.

We had a successful 1st ACU, primarily due to a lot of support from the organizing committee members, members of Japanese Urological Association and the staff from the Department of Urology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University. The preparation for this conference had not been easy because of many practical problems. For example, we did not know the presidents of the national Urological associations in Asian countries, the best person to correspond with, or even the Asian leaders in different urological specialties. We had no email and we spent a lot of time in contacting organizing committee members or invited speakers from several Asian countries. The political situation 20 years ago also made it difficult to reach a number of nations.

Banquet: First Asian Congress of Urology

The postgraduate school students of Kyushu University helped in establishing communication channels with the delegates and provided them a warm reception. The younger members from Kyushu University and Pusan University of Korea built up a close friendship because these two institutions have a sister relationship. The delegates enjoyed the scientific and social presentations including a professional dance and song show by the cross-dressing men at Fukuoka city. We are proud of the success of the 1st ACU meeting in establishing the UAA.