Daily Recap, Sunday, October 11

Welcome to UEG Week Virtual 2020! 

Our bite-sized highlights, especially for you! Welcome to the first of three Daily Recaps taking place throughout the congress. The recaps include central scientific sessions from the meeting, features with UEG Week awardees, and other key congress highlights! 

Today's Opening Session

The Opening Session marked the start of the first day at the first ever UEG Week Virtual, and began with current and past Presidents alike delivering a powerful message about the efforts and desire to ensure the continuation of UEG Week while maintaining a comprehensive and immersive experience.

Chair of the Scientific Committee, Hebert Tilg, stated that it was a pleasure to welcome the global GI community and that UEG have “gathered a world-class and renowned faculty” for a comprehensive three-day programme. He particularly highlighted the vast quantity of abstracts, with an impressive 3000 submissions for this year’s event. 

UEG President, Axel Dignass passed on his sincere thanks to the 10,500+ people who registered for UEG Week Virtual 2020. “UEG Week is a truly worldwide event”, he explained, welcoming both the European and global community. He expressed his pride in being able to deliver a congress that still achieves its goal to “improve the quality of care of GIs throughout Europe and the world.” 

Asked what he is most looking forward to, Axel Dignass said he was particularly excited about the prospect of exploring the late-breaking abstracts. He also highlighted the overarching driver of the event which is to teach, identifying that attendees can look forward to a programme with a “hands-on” approach including live endoscopies and the ever-popular "Mistakes In" sessions.

Novel Treatment Options and Strategies in IBD: Entering a New Decade

The Opening Session saw an insightful presentation from Severine Vermeire, who explained the “management of IBD has witnessed a true revolution in the past two decades”. She added that there are still unmet needs in patients and that, even today, 60-80% do not achieve remission.

Emphasising that it is the ongoing symptoms that truly impact patient quality of life, Severine Vermeire explained that there is “a promising pipeline for IBD in the next decade”, through advanced treatments such as signalling inhibitors. “The top line results of many of these advances are being release during late-breaker sessions over the course of the congress”, she explained, urging delegates to attend these sessions.

Severine Vermeire added, “the key is understanding the underlying pathways that lead to disease in individual patients, as only then will we start to see sub-groups of patients that are defined by specific pathways to the disease.”

“I think the future of IBD looks bright. We have new therapies, new endpoints and we certainly have, and need, more new strategies”, she concluded.

AI and Robotics in Endoscopy: Hype or Reality?

Today's Opening Session also featured a interesting discussion on AI in endoscopy, one of the hot topics at this year's congress, which was delivered by Philip Wai Yan Chiu.

“We are always facing the challenge when talking about AI of man vs machine”, explained Philip Wai Yan Chiu. “However, I believe AI should be used in collaboration with the clinician and endoscopist.” Painting on optimistic picture for the future of endoscopy, he added, “the enhancement in AI technologies will improve efficiency and quality of diagnostic endoscopy, and robotics will be increasingly applied to enhance the potential for therapeutic endoscopy.”

During his presentation, Philip Wai Yan Chiu showcased the effectiveness of AI and robotics, identifying that with these advancements he believes that there will be a much higher demand for therapeutic endoscopy. “The lesson learned from the use of robotic technologies in surgery gives us the hints that application of robotics will enhance the quality of dissection during surgery”, he commented.

“I believe by combining robotic endoscopy with improvements in imaging and novel devices, there will be tremendous development in endoscopic surgery in the future”, concluded Philip Wai Yan Chiu.

Watch the Opening Session

Stefan Schreiber Wins the UEG Research Prize 2020

UEG awards € 100,000 each year for excellence in basic science, translational or clinical research. The prize addresses well-established researchers at the height of their active career, whose science has had or will have a crucial impact on digestive health.

During a live special symposia held today, Stefan Schreiber was awarded the renowned UEG Research Prize 2020 for his outstanding project “Therapeutic mechanisms of controlled-ileocolonic-release nicotinamide (CICR-NAM) in IBD”.

Stefan Schreiber’s research interests include the molecular genetics and pathophysiology of chronic intestinal inflammation, the clinical development of new therapies for IBD and the discovery of mechanisms that control ageing. He is joint editor for a number of leading international IBD and genetics journals and he has to his credit more than 950 original publications in different leading scientific journals.

Watch the Research Prize 2020 Session

Scientific Highlights: New Research Shows Benefits of CRC Screening

European countries quick to introduce large-scale CRC screening programmes are now seeing downward trends in CRC incidence and mortality, suggesting good progress has already been made in the early detection and prevention of new cases.

Researchers from the German Cancer Research Center used data from population-based cancer registries in 20 European countries to analyse and compare trends in CRC incidence, mortality, and stage distribution in relation to screening programmes implemented in those countries. Data was compared between countries with earlier screening implementation, those with later screening implementation, and those with no large-scale screening programmes in place during the study period.

“For mortality, the largest decreases were seen for countries with earlier screening implementation, such as the Czech Republic and Germany, where decreases were two- to three-times larger than for many other countries,” said study presenter Rafael Cordoso.

“Our results should encourage countries with screening in place to maintain and further advance CRC screening efforts,” he noted. “The limited lack of progress that we found for countries with no screening programmes in place strongly calls for their implementation.”

Don't Miss: Networking Opportunities from your own Home! 

Join us in the myUEG Community area where you can meet and interact with colleagues, experts and mentors from around the globe.

Within the Live Chat programme, UEG leaders and experts are online at dedicated times to debate exciting topics and provide career advice.

Tomorrow’s highlights include Women in GI activities, including a career chat on “English and careers in medicine and science: breaking through the language barrier” (10:30-11:30) and a live chat event with leading female gastroenterologists Nurdan Tözün and Evelien Dekker (10:00-10:30).

For young gastroenterologists, a session worth noting tomorrow is the “Young GI CV Check”. Here, small group video chats will be held for delegates under the age of 40 to gain advice from established experts in different fields of digestive health on how to professionalise CVs.

There are a plethora of networking activities within the congress programme and we truly believe there is something for everyone!

Browse the Live Chat programme at UEG Week

Scientific Highlights: FIT Alongside Colonoscopy Improves Polish Screening Rates

A large health services study conducted in Poland has reported that offering faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) alongside colonoscopy significantly improves participation in colonoscopy-based CRC screening programmes. The study, which was conducted within the framework of the Polish Colonoscopy Screening Program, randomized 12,485 screening-naïve individuals aged 55–64 years to one of three screening strategies.

“Combining FIT and colonoscopy resulted in 60–70% higher participation rates relative to offering primary colonoscopy alone,” said Nastazja Pilonis, who presented the study findings. “Introducing FIT resulted in an 8–10% increase of participation.”

Scientific Highlights: H. pylori treatment in Europe evolves

European gastroenterological practice in the treatment of H. pylori has evolved over time in line with the latest evidence and recommendations, achieving improved overall eradication rates during the last 7 years.

The latest data from the European Registry in H. pylori management suggests that, between 2013 and 2020, there has been a shifting away from triple therapies, an increase in the duration of treatment, and an increase in the dose of PPIs prescribed, leading to an overall 5% improvement in eradication rates for first-line therapy. The study presented by Olga Nyssen included 28,194 patients from 29 European countries and 24,882 first-line empirical prescriptions for the treatment of H. pylori infection. Overall, the most commonly prescribed treatments in 2013–2020 were triple therapies, however, the proportion of these therapies decreased from over 50% of prescriptions in 2013/2015 to <20% in 2018/2020.

And...Relax!

Have you seen the ‘Chill Zone’ in the myUEG Community area? Take a break from the science and visit our dedicated space to relax and unwind.

There are three yoga sessions to chose from and, once you’re done, why not try our simple yet delicious recipes! There are also some great sightseeing tours of Vienna available to watch, including a personalised video from the UEG Secretariat showcasing their favourite spots around the city!

We hope you enjoy these extra-curricular activities and return feeling relaxed and recharged for more exciting science.

Visit the myUEG community area

That's all for today's recap! Tune in tomorrow for further bitesized highlights from the scientific and wider congress programme.