Tomoharu Yoshizumi1, Haiyang Sun2
1Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; 2HBSN Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company.
Editor’s Note
The 10th Joint Conference of the University of Chicago and PUMCH Liver Surgery was successfully held at Beijing, China on Sept 6 to 7, 2024. This year’s conference focused on Minimally Invasive Surgery and Adjuvant Therapy for Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Disease. Taking this opportunity, we conduct an interview with Prof. Tomoharu Yoshizumi from Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Expert’s introduction
Dr. Tomoharu Yoshizumi is a Professor at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, with joint appointments in the Departments of Clinical Medicine, Medicine, Health Care Administration and Management, and Health Sciences at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences. His clinical expertise focuses on liver transplantation, particularly overcoming small-for-size graft syndrome and treating recurrent hepatitis C in living donor liver transplantation. Dr. Yoshizumi has received multiple awards, including the Uehara Memorial Foundation Research Grant and the Novartis Pharma Grants for Basic Research. He has also served in leadership roles in various medical societies, including the Japanese Society of Gastroenterological Surgery. Additionally, Dr. Yoshizumi is actively involved in clinical education, serving as a clinical instructor and an external examiner for the OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) at several universities in Japan.
Interview
HBSN: Could you please introduce us to the advanced mainstream treatments available for hepatocellular carcinoma?
Prof. Yoshizumi: For Child-Pugh stage A patients, systemic therapy or hepatic resection are a choice of treatment. And for Child-Pugh stage C, which means a worse liver function, we only can select liver transplant. And Child-Pugh stage B patient is a little bite controversial. Because the liver function is not good but not so bad. We try to treat some Child-Pugh stage B patients with liver transplant combined with ICI or TKI.
HBSN: What originally inspired you to study hepatocellular carcinoma?
Prof. Yoshizumi: I selected HCC as my expertise as a liver transplant surgeon because I’m interested in this.
HBSN: In the age of AI, what challenges and opportunities do you foresee for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma?
Prof. Yoshizumi: Yes, AI is probably the future, especially AI learning machine or something like that. Though we may not foresee exactly when, but probably AI will replace surgeon. The surgery will be operated by robot with AI without surgeons and surgeons just watch.
HBSN: Are there any successful cases where AI has been applied to the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma?
Prof. Yoshizumi: So far not really. We are now just using virtual reality to check the anatomy of the liver because the vessels of liver are a little bit complex. And for medical students, VR is a very good option in terms of education.
HBSN: Besides liver transplantation, do you believe that Patient-Derived Tumor Xenografts will become more promising in the future, especially with the growing focus on precision medicine?
Prof. Yoshizumi: Yes, I think so. There are many systemic therapies on drug for HCC treatment. And if you can cultivate a good tumor zenograft, we can check the effect of the drug before we use.
HBSN: As an experienced professor, what advice would you give to the younger generation interested in your field? What skills or qualities do you believe are essential for achieving success in this area?
Prof. Yoshizumi: I’m a surgeon, so I perform surgeries to treat patients. But not only surgery can achieve this. We have to think. We should use academic thinking to treat patients. In a word, a surgeon should think the mechanism and everything before treating a patient.