Kasai Morio

Kasai Morio ( Japanese 葛西 森夫 ; * 1922 in Aomori Prefecture ; † September 29, 2008 ) was a Japanese surgeon and pediatric surgeon. He developed the " Kasai operation ", an operation method still practiced today for the treatment of the rare congenital biliary atresia .

Life

At the end of the Second World War, Kasai began studying medicine in Sendai . He graduated from Tohoku University's School of Medicine in 1947. There he stayed for his surgical training and finally began to work on what is known as the second surgical department. He began his career as a general surgeon at a time when pediatric surgery was not yet perceived as an independent specialty in Japan. As a proponent of a model of scientific surgery, his early research focused on the water and electrolyte balance with particular attention to postoperative fluid therapy in children. In 1959, Kasai completed a one-year research fellowship at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia that led to his lifelong dedication to pediatric surgery. Upon his return, Kasai was promoted to professor of surgery at Tohoku University. In 1963 he finally became professor and head of the Second Surgical Department. He held this position until he finally retired due to internal academic regulations at the age of 63. After retiring in 1986, he became director of NTT Tohoku Hospital, where he worked until his final retirement in 1993. He continued to influence surgery, and especially pediatric surgery, until his death, despite being disabled by a stroke since 1999.

plant

Morio Kasai's reputation in the Western Hemisphere is largely based on his extensive contribution to the knowledge of the rare congenital biliary atresia and, in particular, advances in its treatment. In the 1950s this malformation was viewed as inevitably fatal. Kasai's efforts to understand the disease process that led to biliary obstruction, followed by biliary obstruction and cirrhosis of the liver paved the way for the surgical intervention he developed. In 1955 he operated on a 72-day-old baby with an occlusion of the biliary tract. He could not find any bile ducts in the porta hepatica. Further dissection resulted in profuse bleeding, which he stopped by suturing the duodenum above the porta hepatica. After the operation, amazingly, bile pigments appeared in the patient's stool and his jaundice completely disappeared. The original publication of the surgical procedure, scientifically called hepatoporto enterostomy, appeared in the Japanese journal Shujutsu in 1959 . This surgical innovation did not gain international attention until the 1960s, after it was first translated and published in English-language specialist newspapers. Initial attempts to imitate the Kasai operation in the United States were unsuccessful. Many American surgeons went to Japan to perfect their surgical technique at Morio Kasai, until successful treatment results were finally achieved in many clinics in the USA in the mid-1970s, more than a decade after its introduction in Japan.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} A. Garcia et al .: Morio Kasai: A Remarkable Impact Beyond the Kasai Procedure. J Pediatric Surg 2012 47 (5), pp. 1027-1032. PMC 3356564 (free full text)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Kasai is the family name, Morio the first name.