The Prague Congress Centre hosted the ESGE Days international medical congress from 28th to 30th April. It is an international meeting organized by the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. The congress took place in a hybrid form, yet more than 2,000 top experts from all over the world arrived in Prague. This is the first major international congress that took place in Prague since the end of the coronavirus pandemic.

International medical congresses represent a unique opportunity where experts from all over the world can get acquainted with the latest scientific findings. ESGE Days provide a platform through which the world’s leading experts in endoscopy, a medical procedure that allows direct examination of internal cavities, meet. One of the types of endoscopic examination is, for example, coloscopy. It helps detect colon cancer, which is the second most common oncological disease in the world. The Czech Republic has long held a sad world leadership in the incidence of this disease. However, thanks to doctors and preventive programs, we managed to reverse the primacy and today we belong to the European average in the incidence of this disease.

“Passing on the latest knowledge in person is often irreplaceable for science. I am therefore very pleased that I can participate with my colleagues from IKEM in the preparation of the congress, to provide the experts in the field of gastroenterology an opportunity of a personal meeting. We expected that more than 2,000 top experts from all over the world would come to the Prague Congress Centre to share their latest findings. This, of course, will help the research and subsequently the patients. It is important for the health care system and patients that as many doctors as possible follow the latest trends in treatment,” explains Prof. Julius Špičák, MD, CSc., Head of the Department of Hepatogastroenterology at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) and a lecturer at the congress.

International meetings are a specific form of tourism that has been completely paralyzed by the covid-19 pandemic. Even though the Prague Congress Centre presented many innovations and new formats of meetings immediately after the pandemic, the return of traditional meetings can be a great impulse to restore the economy affected by the pandemic. “Prague is in the TOP 10 of the imaginary ranking of meeting cities. Thanks to the fact that in the year before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, 138 congresses were held in Prague, attended by 44,000 guests, our capital city reached the ninth position. For context, we can mention that, for example, Tokyo, Amsterdam or Copenhagen ranked behind Prague. I believe that ESGE Days will become the imaginary beginning of the restart of tourism in Prague, which has suffered so much due to the pandemic,” says Lenka Žlebková, CEO of the Prague Congress Centre.

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