Collaboration of People and Society

The COVID-19 was changed to a category 5 infectious disease in Japan in May 2023, and the wearing rate of masks has decreased due to the change in people's behavior. Many academic societies are now only offering face-to-face meetings. Many conferences are now scheduled for face-to-face meetings, and many people may prefer face-to-face meetings or enjoy the opportunity to get to know each other after the conference.

This year, the Japanese Society of Nuclear Cardiology (JSNC) annual meeting and conference was held face-to-face in Nagasaki. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Takashi Kudo in Nagasaki University for his hard work as the congress chairman. Since last year's conference was held in Tokyo and the one before that was held remotely, this was the first time in a long time that the conference was held in a regional venue, and since it was the first time it was held in Nagasaki, many members visited the conference. I believe that face-to-face conferences deepen discussions, and there is a sense of feeling and discussion that cannot be conveyed remotely. On the other hand, if remote participation is made possible, female doctors raising children can participate, and young doctors who are too busy working in hospital wards to attend the conference can participate only during the presentation time, or they can use the on-demand broadcast to acquire knowledge. Dr. Kudo has made many of the JSNC congresses available on demand at a later date. Some cardiovascular societies have reported a decline in membership, mainly due to a decrease in the number of young physicians. Many academic societies currently hold their meetings in person as a general rule, and maintaining multiple means of participation by young doctors would probably increase the number of young doctors joining the society.

　This Annals of Nuclear Cardiology (ANC) issue will include co-publication manuscripts (Practice recommendation for measuring washout rates in ¹²³I-β-methyl-iodophenyl-pentadecanoic acid [¹²³I-BMIPP] fatty acid images) from JSNC and Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine (JSNM). This recommendation was written by JSNC working group because a washout rate of less than 10% for ¹²³I-BMIPP is important for triglyceride deposit cardiomyovasculopathy (TGCV) diagnosis. I also thank JSNC working group for their dedication.

ANC has changed its manuscript submission system as of January this year. Many of you may be familiar with Editorial Manager, which is used by the Japanese College of Cardiology and European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANMI) for their submission systems. The ANC website also includes Endnote data that is useful for citing papers. This is the ninth issue of ANC, and we sincerely hope that you will import your past data into Endnote and make use of it.