Surgery, Gastroenterology and Oncology

Professor Masaki Kitajima graduated from the Keio University School of Medicine in 1966. After receiving his Ph.D. degree in 1975, he spent two years as a fellow at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA.
In 1989, he returned to Japan and was appointed a professor at the Keio University School of Medicine. He founded the Department of Surgery at Keio University and became its Chairman (see Full Biography in Online Appendix).

Over the years, twenty surgeons from his department have been appointed as professors. He became Professor Emeritus in April 2007 and was subsequently appointed President of the International University of Health and Welfare at Mita Hospital, Tokyo, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Honorary President, and professor. During his illustrious research career, he explored topics such as impairment of the gastrointestinal tract following stress, microcirculatory changes observed during the transplantation process, biochemical factors influencing metastasis formation, and gene therapy of malignant tumors.
His pioneering studies on the detection of early gastric and colon cancer, the role of sentinel-node mapping of earlystage gastric and colon cancers, and the successful introduction of robotic surgery ushered new chapters in the history of surgery. By combining the insights from modern pathological studies with minimally invasive surgical procedures, he achieved excellent results in the treatment of malignancy.
Professor Kitajima's research work has produced two hundred books, in addition to approximately 1,135 published articles. He was an Editorial Board Member of the New England Journal of Medicine, the World Journal of Surgery, and 30 other medical journals. He also was a member or President of 54 national and international scientific societies, an Honorary Fellow of the Hungarian, Italian, German, Polish, Surgical Societies, the American Surgical Association, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons. Professor Masaki Kitajima was an excellent surgeon, scholar, and scientist, and his passing away leaves us poorer. He will be dearly missed.
Professor Masaki Kitajima CV:

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