Congress for Lung and Respiratory Medicine in Leipzig

Recent­ly, an impor­tant con­gress for pul­monary and res­pi­ra­to­ry med­i­cine had start­ed with 3,000 par­tic­i­pants at the Con­gress Cen­ter Leipzig. Until Sat­ur­day, more than 120 sym­posia and poster pre­sen­ta­tions will dis­cuss cur­rent top­ics and the lat­est find­ings from the wide-rang­ing field of pneu­mol­o­gy. Around 600 top-class sci­en­tists will present their lat­est research findings.

“Of course, we also dis­cuss all rel­e­vant top­ics relat­ed to COVID-19 and con­sid­er how we as physi­cians pre­pare for the next win­ter. Most impor­tant­ly, we talk about what chal­lenges we will face in pneu­mol­o­gy in the com­ing years and decades.”

- Pro­fes­sor Ste­fan Kluge, Pres­i­dent of the Con­gress of the Ger­man Soci­ety of Pneu­mol­o­gy and Res­pi­ra­to­ry Med­i­cine (DGP)

The keynote speech by Pro­fes­sor Lothar H. Wiel­er is also eager­ly await­ed. On Thurs­day evening, the pres­i­dent of the Robert Koch Insti­tute will shed light on the past pan­dem­ic years and the knowl­edge that has been gained about Sars-CoV­‑2. “I am very pleased that the most impor­tant fig­ures in our field are shar­ing their cur­rent research find­ings with all of us,” says Pro­fes­sor Torsten Bauer, Pres­i­dent of the DGP. Devel­op­ment and progress: accents in inten­sive care and res­pi­ra­to­ry med­i­cine The DGP Con­gress is themed “Devel­op­ment and Progress” — lead­ing sci­en­tists will bring par­tic­i­pants up to date on the lat­est research as well as clin­i­cal applications.

“As an inten­sive care physi­cian, I have also set some accents on the top­ic of inten­sive and res­pi­ra­to­ry med­i­cine at this con­gress, as this area has a spe­cial role to play due to the coro­na pan­dem­ic,” said con­gress pres­i­dent Kluge, direc­tor of the Depart­ment of Inten­sive Care Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter Ham­burg-Eppen­dorf. “For me, an impor­tant com­po­nent of the con­gress is also the tar­get­ed work with young sci­en­tists and the approx­i­mate­ly 20 post­grad­u­ate cours­es and work­shops with which the event start­ed today.”

A spe­cial high­light of the Pneu­mol­o­gy Con­gress will be the sev­en high-pro­file pres­i­den­tial sym­posia, in which key top­ics will be exam­ined in greater detail. There, the top­ics include tobac­co ces­sa­tion, vac­ci­na­tion for pneu­mo­log­i­cal infec­tions, devel­op­ments in pul­monary hyper­ten­sion, oxy­gen ther­a­py, ven­ti­la­tion con­cepts and dig­i­tal­iza­tion in pneu­mol­o­gy — and there will be an update on COVID-19. “Here, too, all par­tic­i­pants will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to exchange ideas direct­ly with the lead­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives of their respec­tive research fields,” says Kluge. Short-term atten­dees can still reg­is­ter on the con­gress web­site on the days of the event. Select­ed pro­gram con­tent — includ­ing all pres­i­den­tial sym­posia — will also be streamed live and avail­able on demand for three months afterwards.

Research fund­ing: the most impor­tant pneu­mol­o­gy prizes will be award­ed The most impor­tant prizes in the field of pneu­mol­o­gy will also be award­ed at the DGP Con­gress. On Thurs­day evening, the two DGP Research Prizes, each worth 10,000 euros, will be award­ed in recog­ni­tion of out­stand­ing work in basic and clin­i­cal research. On Fri­day at noon, the pres­ti­gious Oskar Med­i­cine Prize of the Oskar-Helene-Heim Foun­da­tion will be award­ed — with 50,000 euros in fund­ing, this is one of the most high­ly endowed med­ical prizes in Germany.

Be there: on site in Leipzig or dig­i­tal­ly via livestream. Reg­is­ter online now via the DGP con­gress web­site! The Ger­man Soci­ety for Pneu­mol­o­gy and Res­pi­ra­to­ry Med­i­cine (DGP) is a sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical soci­ety that spe­cial­izes in improv­ing the pre­ven­tion, diag­no­sis and treat­ment of res­pi­ra­to­ry and lung diseases.

For a long time, the focus was on tuber­cu­lo­sis, but since the 1960s, wide­spread dis­eases such as asth­ma, the per­ma­nent res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease COPD, pneu­mo­nia and lung can­cer have made pneu­mol­o­gy one of the major focus areas of inter­nal med­i­cine. Impor­tant cur­rent top­ics include smok­ing ces­sa­tion, the effects of air pol­lu­tants on res­pi­ra­to­ry air, sleep-relat­ed res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­or­ders, ven­ti­la­tor wean­ing, and the nov­el coro­n­avirus SARS-CoV­‑2 and the result­ing infec­tious dis­ease COVID-19. The DGP was found­ed in 1910 and today has about 4,600 mem­bers from med­i­cine and research.