One of our members on the Editorial board of our Journal, Prof. Leon Janse van Rensburg, was the keynote speaker at the first State of the Art Imaging course in Dental Radiology in Adelaide, Australia on the 26,27 February 2000.This meeting was organized by the Radiology Department of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Reports indicate that the meeting was a roaring success. Prof. Parker and Prof. Van Rensburg and I were also the guest speakers at the first conference on Advances in Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology/Imaging in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in March 2000. The conference was organized by the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya.

The first Oral and Maxillofacial Imaging Workshop in South Africa in association with our medical counterparts was held in Cape Town and Johannesburg in September 2001.The workshop was organized by the Department of Maxillofacialradiology, University of Stellenbosch and the Radiological Society of South Africa. This workshop awakened medical radiologists with a new interest in Maxillofacial radiology and may play a role in recruiting new members from the Medical fraternity for IADMFR. in the future.
Prof. Van Rensburg and I were also involved in the first day course in Advance Imaging of the Maxillofacial region at the IV Congresso Brasileiro de Radiologia Odontológica which was held in Goiânia, Brazil in June 2001.

Our Vice-President Designate, Prof Murillo J.N. de Abreu Junior, received his Ph.D. in March 2001 at the University of Stellenbosch with his thesis, "Tuned aperture computed tomography (TACT); an investigation on the factors associated with its image quality for caries detection."

Curly Nortjé

We are working in the organisation of the IV Latin American Meeting of Oral and Maxillo

Facial Radiology to be held on June 21st. & 22nd., 2002 at Caesar Park Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will have an eighth hours course about "Functional and radiological aspects of TMJ", by Prof. Dr. Annika Isberg (Sweden), and lectures concerning all items on actual radiology: - New technology - Techniques - Radiology on implants - Protection against radiations - Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology web-based education - etc. Soon, we will send our web address to give the opportunity to on-line registration.

Hugo Dagum

Those of us from Australia who attended the 13th IADMFR Congress in Glasgow would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Douglas Lovelock and his team for organising excellent didactic and social programs. We feel that it was a tremendous program. As many of you may be aware Ross Macdonald has relinquished the position of regional director for Australasia, a position he has held for many years and that I was appointed to replace him at the recent General Assembly. I appreciate that I have a great deal to live up to and only hope that I can adequately fill his shoes. Ross has decided to take a well earned rest and concentrate on family matters. I would like to thank him for his untiring work in promoting DMFR here in Australia as well as overseas we shall miss his keen wit and infective personality. I personally have a great respect for his clinical knowledge and expertise in the field of DMFR and I have always valued his advice and friendship. He has been a true pioneer in the field of Maxillofacialradiology. I would ask you to join me in wishing both him and Michelle along with their family the very best wishes for the future. As for the Australian scene, the size of the continent, small population presents a barrier to a viable National Association. There are some 20 members of IADMFR scattered around the Australasian region whom I hope and encourage to actively promote our field of expertise.

I know that there are small groups around the region who meet on a regular basis and our discipline is being actively promoted by some of the University Postgraduate/Continuing Education Committees one of the highlights being on November 8 & 9 when Assoc. Professor William C. Scarfe is presenting a programme in Canberra under the auspices of Adelaide

University Postgraduate Committee in Dentistry.

Malcolm I. Coombs

We wish South Africa all the success in their endeavours to host the Scientific Meeting of the IADMFR in Cape Town in 2005. I lived in Cape Town for several years and it is a very beautiful city with facilities that will make for a great meeting there. Dr. Nortjé has arranged many scientific meetings and thus we can all be assured of a great scientific feast. I strongly suggest we all start preparing for the trip and I assure everyone that they will be very happy that they undertook the journey. There are also many great game parks in South Africa that are most certainly worth a visit before or after the meeting. Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is situated at the tip of Africa.

Here in the US we have completed another successful annual scientific meeting in Portland, Oregon at the beginning of October. The new president is Sharon Brooks. Yes, that name rings a bell. She is the editor of the Radiology Section of the Quad O journal. The new members of the Executive council elected before the Annual Session are President-elect, Kenneth Abramovitch; Treasurer, Brad J. Potter; and Councillor for Academy Affairs, Gail F. Williamson. Between 90 and 100 people attended the Annual Session. There were only a few cancellations resulting from the events of September 11. Many of those resulted from individuals' inability to get flights as a result of the cutbacks in airlines' schedules. The standard of the papers was higher than ever and there was participation by those who attended. Two awards were presented at the Annual Banquet. The Howard R. Raper Graduate Student Award recipient was Dr. Emad Khan of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Arthur H. Wuehrmann Prize for the best manuscript published in the journal Oral Surgery Oral Medicine Oral Pathology Oral Radiology and Endodontics was presented to Dr. Hui Liang of Baylor College of Dentistry and her co-authors for a manuscript on tuned aperture computed tomography (TACT).

The optional off-site social function was a most successful and enjoyable dinner cruise on the privately chartered Willamette Star, which was enjoyed by a capacity crowd of about 70 attendees.
Next year's Annual Session will be at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Antonio, Texas from November 13-17, 2002. Yes it is worth planning to attend the meeting. For those who want more information please feel free to contact me or the Secretary General of the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Kevin O'Carroll.

Kevin's email address is: mocarroll@sod.umsmed.edu

Neill Serman

The 187th meeting of Kanto (East Japan) district of JSOMR was held on March 31, 2001 at School of Dentistry at Niigata, The Nippon Dental University chaired by Professor Makoto Tuchimochi. The joint conference with 188th meeting of Kanto (East Japan) district and the 21st Ktanihon (North Japan) was held on June 9, 2001 at Tohoku University, Faculty of Dentistry at Sendai city chaired by Professor Takatsugu Sasano. Various scientific papers were presented.
The 6th Annual Congress for Diagnostic Imaging Division was held at Hiroshima on May 12 through 13, 2001, chaired by Professor Keiji Tanimoto (Faculty of Dentistry, Hiroshima University). This meeting is the diagnostic imaging section of Japanese Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (JSOMR). The main topics of this meeting were osteomyelitis of the jaws and other inflammatory lesions. There was an animated panel discussion on this theme. Special lecture “Today’s Therapy in Hematological Diseases” by Professor Akirou Kimura (Department of Hematology and Oncology, Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, Hiroshima University). Nineteen scientific papers were presented. The congress was accompanied with the satellite workshop on the topics of Video Fluorography for Patients with Dysphagia directed by Professor Keiji Tanimoto.

The 42nd Congress of Japanese Society for Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (JSOMR) was held from October 3 through 5, 2001 at Tokyo, chaired by Professor Koji Shinoda of Nihon University School of Dentistry. As Dr. Shinoda described in his address, reformation has been carrying out in many fields throughout Japan since the turn of the 21st century. We have been forced to change both the educational and clinical systems in Dentistry. In the world of radiation medicine, new machines and techniques have been developed one after another. Reflecting the epoch-making renovation era, the presentations of the congress were quite rich in variety including the up-to-date subjects. One hundred and four scientific papers (61 oral and 43 Poster presentation) were reported. During the period of the meeting, the 15th meeting on radiation therapy was held. Special lecture: “Educational Strategy to Dental Radiological Education in Postgraduate Dental Education” by (Malmo University, Sweden). Educational lecture: “Diagnostic imaging of Naso-paranasal Sinus Lesions” by Professor Toshitaka Iinuma (Saitama Medical University, Department of Otorhinolaryngology). Assigned lectures: “Nuclear Medicine in Oral and Maxillofacial Region—Focused on Bone Scintigraphy” by Professor Makoto Tsuchimochi (School of Dentistry at Niigata, The Nippon Dental University). Professor Li-Min Lin attended the Congress and invited Japanese colleagues to join the Asian Congress of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (ACOMFR), which will be held in June 2002 at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, China.

Kanji Kishi