Volume 17 Issue 8, August 2020

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is affecting and changing the daily practice of gastrointestinal endoscopy worldwide. To protect patients and endoscopy unit personnel, endoscopy units have had to postpone a large proportion of endoscopic procedures. These delays might have an effect on the screening for and surveillance of digestive cancers.

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 has undeniably affected modalities of medical and gastroenterology training in all endemic areas. Indeed, the adoption of various distance-learning techniques has been mandatory to facilitate education and enhance skills such as problem-solving, self-directed learning, open communication and also holistic non-cognitive attributes such as adaptability and collaboration.

A mountable ‘smart’ toilet system has been developed to personalize health monitoring. The system uses excretion data, including urinalysis, urodynamics, stool form and defecation timing, stored in a cloud server. This smart toilet system has the potential to provide useful information to characterize symptoms of patients with bowel dysfunction or defecatory disorders.

Obesity is a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer. Now, a new study reports that obesity accelerates early pancreatic cancer development and growth in mice through local perturbations in the pancreatic microenvironment and implicates pancreatic islet-derived cholecystokinin as a driving factor.

Single-cell transcriptomic technologies are transforming our understanding of cellular diversity and function in health and disease. This Review discusses how these technologies have been applied in hepatology, advancing our understanding of cellular heterogeneity and providing novel insights into liver biology such as metabolic zonation and the mechanisms underpinning liver regeneration.

Irritable bowel syndrome is one of the most common gut disorders worldwide and is defined according to patterns of gastrointestinal symptoms that might be limited in their applicability to all countries and cultures. This Review provides an overview of the global burden of irritable bowel syndrome and discusses the implications for the care of patients worldwide.

The neoplastic epithelium of pancreatic cancer exists within a dense stroma that is recognized as a critical mediator of disease progression. This Review discusses our current understanding of the three principal constituents of pancreatic cancer stroma, their effect on the prevalent immune landscape and promising therapeutic targets within this compartment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in changes to the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, including major disruptions to endoscopy. This Perspective provides a guide and recommendations for inflammatory bowel disease endoscopy during a global health emergency based on expert experience in Italy and France.