This Year in Medicine 2025: Recognizing Top Advances in Healthcare

As 2025 comes to a close, healthcare is already being shaped by a series of high-impact developments cutting across clinical specialties.

Throughout December, This Year in Medicine, the ninth edition of our annual series, will reflect on the breakthroughs, challenges, and evolving conversations across healthcare. This year’s coverage will deliver a new installment every evening Monday through Friday, for the entire month of December, featuring in-depth features, expert commentary, podcasts, and dynamic multimedia content highlighting the most impactful developments in medicine from across the HCPLive Network.

This year’s series brings together perspectives on major advances across specialties, including progress in liver disease, evolving treatable traits in COPD and asthma, and continued shifts in diabetes care. Nephrology takes a central role with updates on rare kidney diseases and new insights on kidney stones, while metabolic health stays at the forefront through coverage of GLP-1 therapies reshaping cardiology, neurology, and other specialties as well as new obesity research following the latest Lancet Commission findings.

Additional installments examine rising interest in nonhormonal options for vasomotor symptoms, renewed national attention on cancer screening after President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis, the impact of falling vaccination rates and health misinformation, and key developments in dermatology, xenotransplantation, pulmonary screening, multiple sclerosis biomarkers, vaccine policy, and oral immunotherapy.

This edition will also feature new episodes of HCPLive’s flagship podcasts, including Diabetes Dialogue, Liver Lineup, and Don't Miss a Beat, adding expert-driven conversation to the mix.

Together, these stories and discussions carry forward the momentum of 2025 and illustrate how medicine continues to evolve as we head into 2026.

This year’s series is a collaboration across the HCPLive Network:

• ContagionLive
• Contemporary OB/GYN
• Contemporary Pediatrics
• CGTLive
• HCPLive
• The Educated Patient
• NeurologyLive
• Urology Times

Stay connected with This Year in Medicine on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn using the hashtag #ThisYearInMedicine, or follow the series on HCPLive’s homepage and daily newsletter.

A full list of entries and summaries will be available as the series unfolds. Check back throughout December for new installments and insights as we look toward 2026.