The 26th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Heart Failure Society will be held for three days from Friday, October 21 to Sunday, October 23, 2022 at the Nara Convention Center in the ancient capital of Nara. This is a great honor for both myself and my colleagues in my department, and I feel a sense of awe at the weight of responsibility on my shoulders when I think about the wonderful scientific meetings of the past.

With no end in sight, COVID-19 has overturned the conventional wisdom of how we think about many things. I believe that we will see significant changes, not only in how academic societies are managed, but in medicine as a whole. The human race must overcome these tribulations and build a new type of conventional wisdom. We will keep this in mind as we prepare to hold this event in the fall of 2022 as a hybrid meeting online and face to face with the hope of being able to meet in person for the first time in three years.

As we know, the prevalence of heart failure is rising as the population ages, with measures to counter this eventuality a pressing concern. The Basic Act on Stroke and Cardiovascular Disease was enforced in 2019, while the Japanese National Plan for Promotion of Measures Against Cerebrovascular and Cardiovascular Disease was announced by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2020. It is a well-known fact that heart failure, a grave disease, falls as a matter of course under the Basic Act on Stroke and Cardiovascular Disease.

Recent advances in medical care for heart failure have been astonishing. First, new evidence on therapeutic agents for heart failure has been published in quick succession, with updated guidelines released in Japan, Europe and the United States since the beginning of 2021. Device therapy for structural heart disease, which is intricately related to heart failure, have also become increasingly more common. We have also seen remarkable advances in peripheral technologies, such as genomic medicine, new biomarkers, artificial intelligence, big data and remote medical care. However, as human beings, we have a growing need for emotionally accessible treatment and care for heart failure, including multidisciplinary team medicine, cardiac rehabilitation, and palliative care. In view of this, we have chosen “The Pursuit of Happiness: Beyond Harmonization of Science and Humanity” as the theme of the 26th meeting. As we consider future approaches to heart failure, the pursuit of humanity’s well-being should be our top priority. This theme reflects our hope that the discussions with stakeholders at this meeting on the necessity of adding elements from both life sciences and richly humanistic social sciences to the field of heart failure, for which many mechanisms for onset and severity are still unknown, will lead to a better tomorrow in quality medical care for heart failure.

We sincerely look forward to being able to welcome you to the ancient city of Nara in the fall of 2022 and pray for your continued health during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Yoshihiko Saito, MD, PhD
President, the 26th Annual Scientific Meeting of

the Japanese Heart Failure Society
Chief Executive Officer, Nara Prefectural Hospital Organization, Nara Prefecture Western Medical Center/
Professor Emeritus, Nara Medical University