News

Many public healthcare systems are based around a ‘sick care’ model where people seek and receive treatment when they fall ill. With many countries grappling a growing and ageing population (1), there is an increasing overall burden on healthcare systems per capita. One way of managing the growing demands on healthcare systems is a refocusing of resources and treatment towards a ‘preventative care’ model. In such a model, people are treated earlier, before they become ill, and they are assisted in maintaining healthy, active lifestyles.

The use of AI to aid diagnosis has been heralded increasingly often as an imminent evolution in the world of gastroenterology (1, 2). Thanks to an Italian study, in April the FDA has approved for the first time a tool for colonoscopy that helps doctors detect suspicious lesions in real time whilst performing the examination (3, 4).

Owing to social restrictions still in place in the continued effort to halt the COVID-19 pandemic, the next ESMO Breast Cancer Congress 2021 (5-8 May 2021) is due to take place in a fully virtual environment.

Heart failure (HF) is a pressing and illusive public health epidemic. Nearly 50% of all HF cases involve HFpEF — to which there is no defined therapy (1). As such, refining prediction and treatment of HF is a crucial step in alleviating high morbidity and mortality (2). The development of novel clinical tools and therapies that assist in the diagnosis and management of HF, such as the use of biomarkers, are essential to improving patient outcomes.

A year has passed since The Corpus closed its offices due to the pandemic and the Prime Minister asked us all to work from home ‘for a few weeks’. Three national lockdowns later and the team has now been working from home for an entire year – a long time to be apart by anyone’s standards.

So, to mark this strange anniversary, we asked everyone at The Corpus what they have been up to over the past 12 months and what they have learned. 

The Corpus had an incredibly busy year last year, with an unexpected increase in demand for online meeting solutions. We worked with pharmaceutical companies, speakers and healthcare professionals to deliver innovative and interactive online meetings that made a real difference, with 87% of attendees feeling more confident after the Corpus meetings, and a staggering 72% intending to make a change in their clinical practice as a result.

In December 2020, we were delighted to receive notification that Global Health & Pharma had bestowed two awards upon us:

Vaccination is one of the most effective investments in global health: WHO reports that vaccines save 2–3 million lives each year, with a considerable potential for growth should worldwide coverage improve.

There is no doubt that 2020 presented us all with new challenges. With many countries introducing nationwide lockdowns and restricting travel, face-to-face meetings were postponed, delayed or cancelled. With the emergence of a global health crisis, it became increasingly important to find ways to ensure healthcare professionals stayed connected. As a result, more people were looking to online solutions, and The Corpus team have been happy to offer our expertise. 

The annual European CME Forum is a must for anybody working in medical education. The forum brings together like-minded individuals to discuss the challenges faced over the past year, analyse success stories and share best practice. Although forced to move online this year, the organisers did a great job of keeping participants engaged throughout the course of the three-day event. Here are just a few of my top take-aways: