Kiyoshi Kaneda to Receive NASS' Wiltse Award

Professor Kiyoshi Kaneda, M.D., Ph.D. has won the Wiltse Award twice—once from the International Society for Study of the Lumbar Spine (ISSLS’s Wiltse Lifetime Achievement Award) in 2004 and now in 2011 from the North American Spine Society (NASS).

NASS’ Leon Wiltse award honors excellence in leadership and/or clinical research in spine care.

Almost exactly one year ago Professor Kaneda was being presented the prestigious Harrington Award by the Scoliosis Research Society at the spectacular Kyoto International Conference Center. In 2000 he won the Orthopaedic Research Society’s Arthur B. Steindler Award.

Professor Kaneda, who is now in his 50th year of treating patients, has played a pivotal role in the history and development of Japanese and global spine surgery in advancing the care of patients with severe spinal deformities. He is also the inventor of the Kaneda Dual Rod system.

But Professor’s Kaneda’s legacy may well be something that is not on any plaque, award or patent filing. Professor Kaneda’s great and most enduring contribution to spine surgery may well be his program for promoting the exchange of information and training between surgeons in Japan and the rest of the world.

Gateway to U.S./Japanese Interchange

Paul McAfee, M.D., Director of the Scoliosis and Spine Center, St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland, is one of the dozens of surgeons who traveled to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido at Professor Kaneda’s request. McAfee remembers his program vividly: “Professor Kaneda invited Art Steffee and me to the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Hokkaido University School of Medicine Department of Orthopedics (founded in 1948) to be keynote speakers. At that meeting I remember that AcroMed gave Dr. Kaneda and the University of Hokkaido the VSP and pedicle screw technology and Dr. Kaneda gave his anterior instrumentation technology (later to be named the Kaneda Dual Rod System) to AcroMed."

"Instead of keeping the royalties for his personal benefit, Kiyoshi used the funds over the next 20 years to send his brightest and best trainees to the U.S. for Fellowships. I would say that Kaneda's greatest contribution was that he was the gateway to U.S. and Japanese interchange of ideas and training.”

Publication and Research Awards

Recalls Bryan Cunningham, Director of the Orthopedic Spine Research lab at St. Joseph’s Medical Center:

The Japanese Fellows from Hokkaido University were simply amazing. They each produced numerous publications and received research awards while working with us in Baltimore.

Indeed, the number of papers streaming out of the Cunningham/McAfee lab in Baltimore from Kaneda’s protégées is impressive. Kaneda’s fellows were on 38 published studies emanating from the Baltimore lab.

That was just one teaching institution.

Dr. Kuniyoshi Abumi, for example, did a fellowship with Dr. Manohar Panjabi at Yale (approx. 1986) and Dr. Manabu Ito was a fellow with Dr. Hansen Yuan at Syracuse (1992) so the entire volume of peer reviewed publications coming from Kaneda’s fellows is probably much higher.

At the end of this article we list a few of the spine fellows who, because of Professor Kaneda, had the opportunity to study in the United States.

Kiyoshi Kaneda, M.D., Ph.D.

Kiyoshi Kaneda was born 75 years ago on September 7, 1936 in a small town in the Fukushima prefecture of Japan. His birth town, by the way, was comparatively unaffected by this year’s Tsunami and nuclear power plant troubles.

Professor Kaneda graduated from Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan in 1962. In1963 he finished his internship at Kyoto University Hospital where he received his M.D. It was in Kyoto that young Kiyoshi Kaneda met his future wife, a renowned teacher of social work and leader in her own right.

The newly minted Dr. Kaneda finished his post graduate work in orthopedics at the Hokkaido University Postgraduate School of Medicine where he received his Ph.D. Dr. Kaneda began his work at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hokkaido University in 1968.

Harvard, Twin Cities Scoliosis Center and Hokkaido University

In 1973 he became a visiting clinical fellow under Professor John E. Hall at The Children Hospital Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. In 1974 he was the visiting clinical fellow under Professor John Moe and Dr. Robert B. Winter at The Twin Cities Scoliosis Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Upon returning to Sapporo in 1976, Dr. Kaneda was appointed Associate Professor at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hokkaido University School of Medicine. Ten years later, 1986, Dr. Kaneda was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Hokkaido University.

We had the honor of interviewing Professor Kaneda at his home in Sapporo, Japan, just prior to the presentation of NASS’ Leon Wiltse Award. Professor Kaneda will receive his award at 10:55 am, Friday November 4th during the 2011 NASS Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Professor Kaneda Recalls an Extraordinary Career

OTW: Professor Kaneda, congratulations on being selected the 2011 winner of the North American Spine Society’s prestigious Leon Wiltse Award. What were some of the most important influences in your career and development as a Professor and international leader in spine surgery?

Professor Kaneda: Thank you. I am honored and privileged to receive the Leon Wiltse Award from the Society. Looking back I would like to first recognize Harvard University’s Professor John Hall. He extended an invitation to me to be a spine fellow with him at Harvard University in the 1970s. I didn’t speak very much English at the time. But I went to Boston. After his lectures, Professor Hall would take the time to explain further his lectures. It was from Professor Hall that I began to learn anterior approaches for treating spinal deformities. I studied the Zielke, Dwyer and Texas Scottish Rite approaches. In 1979 I returned to Japan and brought the anterior rod approach with me. But we had problems and difficulties. The single rod system couldn’t handle the loads.

OTW: Can you describe how you developed the Kaneda Dual Rod System?

Professor Kaneda: Biomechanically, the single rod system has weaknesses. It only works in two dimensions. So we started testing a two rod design. With a dual rod, we were able to address spinal instability within a three dimension approach. The rods in the dual rod system were skinnier, but they provided more stability than a single rod. We have found that the dual rod system is effective for stabilization in many indications including deformities and vertebral fractures.

OTW: While you have retired from Hokkaido University, you still see patients twice a week and are performing surgery once a week. What is your principal research and clinical practice interests these days?

Professor Kaneda: The Aging Spine! The effects of osteoporosis and compression fractures on the spine, back pain, and spinal cord injury is of high importance to me. [Professor Kaneda published “Comparison of Incidence Rates of Vertebral Fractures in Japanese Patients with Osteoporosis”—in JBJS 2004]. The preferred treatment plan that we use begins with prevention—walking and drug therapy. Then we use bracing. Kyphoplasty, which was recently approved for reimbursement in Japan, is also helpful at the beginning stages, but it is not for every patient. Eventually, for some patients, we perform surgery and try to decompress where there has been vertebral collapse.

OTW: Thank you Professor Kaneda. We wish we had more time and we look forward to seeing you at NASS.

Partial List of Kaneda’s Spine Research Fellows

Osamu Shirado, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Saitama Medical University, Saitama, Japan
Received Ph.D., 1990, Hokkaido University.

Yasuhiro Shono, M.D., Ph.D.
Lecturer, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
Received Ph.D., 1992, Hokkaido University.

Yoshihisa Kotani, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
Received Ph.D., 1994, Hokkaido University.

Masahiro Kanayama, M.D., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
Received Ph.D., 1997, Hokkaido University.

Itaru Oda, M.D., Ph.D.
Lecturer, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
Received Ph.D., 1999, Hokkaido University.

Norimichi Shimamoto, M.D., Ph.D.
Lecturer, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan
Received Ph.D., 2001 Hokkaido University.

Jun Kikkawa, M.D., Ph.D.
Lecturer, Saitama University School of Medicine, Saitama, Japan
Received Ph.D., 2009, Saitama University.

Hidemasa Umekoji, M.D., Ph.D.
Lecturer, Saitama University School of Medicine, Saitama, Japan
Received Ph.D., 2011, Saitama University.

Research Awards Presented to Kaneda’s Fellows

2009 Whitecloud Award for Best Basic Science Paper. 16th Annual Meeting of the International Meeting of Advanced Spine Techniques (IMAST).
2002 Best Paper of the Society Award – Japanese Scoliosis Research Society.
2002 North American Spine Society (NASS) Award for Basic Science Spinal Research
2001 North American Spine Society (NASS) Award for Basic Science Spinal Research
2001 Moe Exhibit Award, Scoliosis Research Society
1998 Moe Exhibit Award, Scoliosis Research Society
1998 Japanese Spine Research Society Award for Basic Science
1992 Cervical Spine Research Society (CSRS) Basic Science Research Award
1991 North American Spine Society (NASS) Award for Spinal Research
1991 American Orthopaedic Association (AOA) Award for Orthopaedic Spinal Research
1991 Cervical Spine Research Society (CSRS) Residents Award for Cervical Spine Research