Conference Report: 12th Fall Conference of the Japanese Society of Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering (JSMBE)

The 12th Fall Conference of JSMBE was held at Yuubin-Chokin-Kaikan Hotel and Niigata Citizen Plaza in Niigata City, Japan, 6-7 November 1998. The conference was organised by the steering and technical program committees. The conference was technically co-sponsored by IEEE/EMBS Tokyo Chapter.

A broad and far-reaching spectrum of topics was discussed at the conference. There were four invited keynote speakers, two symposia, three organised sessions, 15 special sessions sponsored by each technical committee, a luncheon seminar, a young investigator competition, and poster presentations of submitted papers. Approximately 550 individuals attended the conference. The following lists some of the technical program highlights.

Friday 6 November

1.
  • Competition for Young Investigator Award
  • Luncheon Seminar: Time-Frequency Analysis in Biosignal Processing, Professor Metin Akay (Dartmouth College, USA) 
2.
  • Organised Session 1: New Era of Functional Analyses of Human Brain
  • Organised Session 2: Signal Processing and Evaluation for Physical Exercise
  • Organised Session 3: Engineering Approaches to Mandibular Movement and Swallowin
3.
  • Plenary Lecture: Virtual Biology Laboratories, Dr. Hiroaki Kitano (SONY CSL,
       Japan)

Saturday morning, 7 November

Plenary Lecture: Making Primary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease a Reality, Professor James Shepherd (Royal Infirmary, UK)

  • Symposium: Evidence-based Medicine-Impact of Large Scale Trials in Clinical Medicine

Saturday afternoon 7 November

  • Symposium: New Horizon of Telemedicine
  • Plenary Lecture: What is Telemedicine?, Dr. Eric G. Tangalos (Mayo Clinic Rochester, USA)
  • Demonstration: Telemedicine in the Near Future

The first day was designated for presentations of submitted papers, the young investigator competition, and several special sessions. Twenty papers were submitted for the Young Investigator Competition, and the winners were:

  • J. Miyahara, et al.: Development of environmental control systems with voice input.
  • T. Miyasaka, et al.: Spinal mechanisms for the muscles of the human upper limb: Inhibitory neural connections among the biceps brachii, brachioradialis, and pronator teres.
  • T. Matsumoto, et al.: Development for quantitative urine glucose sensor.
  • T. Ninomiya, et al.: The comparison of multiple irradiation in a day and single irradiation through seven days.
The second day consisted of morning and afternoon sessions. The morning session was open to non-member researchers. The objective of this session was to explore the impact of large-scale and long-term trials in clinical medicine. Prof. Shepherd reported that his prevention trial of simvastatin (drug for lowering cholesterol) demonstrated a significant reduction compared to the placebo, in all causes of mortality, coronary mortality and in a wide range of cardiovascular non-fatal events, with no evidence of significant adverse effects. Although many different treatment modalities including medication, surgical therapy, and radiological therapy have been shown effective against the target disorder, none has demonstrated efficacy in the reduction of all causes of mortality.
Symposium of Evidence-based Medicine chaired by Dr.Ueno and Dr. Okada.

This is the first report of a medication that reduces all causes of mortality not only decreasing a target disease. These therapy modalities should be further investigated by large-scale and long-term trials. Technologies in the biomedical engineering will be useful for such investigations. This concept is called 'Evidence-based Medicine'.

The afternoon session was set-up to discuss telemedicine. This session was open to the public. The highlight was the demonstration of 'Telemedicine in the Near Future'. We connected the conference site, a patient's house, a private clinic, a university hospital, and an ambulance by the Internet through the assistance of a television crew. The scene centred around a patient who had suffered from myocardial infarction at home and was taken to his family doctor by ambulance. The doctor consulted a specialist at an emergency centre and sent the patient records including ECG and a chest x-ray via the Internet. The patient then received acute care at the university hospital, and was then released to his home where he underwent follow-up treatment via the Internet. The scene was presented live on a TV network. I am certain that not only the society members, but also many people who watched the TV program, found the idea of telemedicine fascinating.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the many staff who assisted with the conference as well as BSN TV station for their generous help.

Conference Chair: Professor Masahiko Okada
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Niigata University School of Medicine
1 Asahimachi, Niigata City 951-8510, Japan
Email: okadar@med.niigata-u.ac.jp