It is my great honor to contribute to this special issue of “Brain Tumor Pathology”, volume 39, no.2. Papers in this issue were invited from symposia during the 39th Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Brain Tumor Pathology. This meeting was originally planned as on-site meeting at Sea Gaia Convention Center, Miyazaki, on May 21 and 22, 2021. However, it could not occur in person because of the rapid expansion of 4th wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Finally, it was conducted completely online as a virtual meeting on the same schedule.

The theme of this meeting was “Cutting-Edge of Brain Tumor Pathology”, since the new 2021 WHO Classification of Tumors of the Central Nervous System was going to be released in 2021 (It was available online in the end of the year). This new edition (5th edition) includes major changes that advance the role of molecular diagnosis in CNS tumor classification.

To widely distribute early but accurate information of this new classification to the members of our society, we invited three distinguished guest-speakers.

First, Professor Ryuji Komori gave us an overview of the change in the new classification in the Educational Lecture. Second, Dr. Felix Sahm from Heidelberg, Germany, showed us major changes in adult diffuse glioma, clinical significance of epigenetic analysis and new molecular classification of meningiomas. Third, Professor Fausto Rodriguez from Johns Hopkins University, focused on the new advancement in the classification of pediatric gliomas.

In addition, Professor Toshinori Hirai, Kumamoto University, talked about “Recent topics in advanced MR images for the diagnosis of brain tumors” in the Educational Lecture.

We had four symposia in this meeting. The title of each symposium was, “Microenvironment of brain tumor”, “Methylation analysis”, “New trends in pediatric brain tumors” and “Detection of the gene-alteration in brain tumors using Neuro-imaging”, respectively. To summarize this webinar, excellent articles in this issue were invited from these symposia.

I would express special thanks to the Japan Society of Brain Tumor Pathology for publishing these excellent papers presented during the 39th Annual Meeting. I also deeply appreciate the cooperation of all the authors who took time for publication. I hope these papers will contribute to deepen understanding of the new advancement in Brain Tumor Pathology.

Hideo Takeshima, MD, Ph D

President, The 39th Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Brain Tumor Pathology

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Department of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Japan

Hideo Takeshima

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Correspondence to Hideo Takeshima.

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Takeshima, H. Preface for Brain Tumor Pathology vol. 39 issue 2. Brain Tumor Pathol (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10014-022-00430-9

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