It was a tumultuous year in the world of health, marked by a resurgence of measles in Canada and budget cuts to research and science south of the border.
But despite these troubling developments dominating the conversation, medical researchers and doctors working in labs, hospitals and universities around the world also pushed the envelope this year, spurring positive innovations and improving how patients receive care.
Inspiring stories included breakthroughs in organ transplants, new treatments for women’s health and the harnessing of artificial intelligence. The Globe and Mail spoke to five Canadian doctors and researchers about advances in their fields this past year – and what’s still to come.
Open this photo in gallery:A new treatment to ease menopause symptoms
Wendy Wolfman, a gynecologist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, is heartened by new treatments available for menopausal women who experience hot flashes and night sweats – especially those who cannot, or choose not to, take hormone therapy.
Hot flashes, or vasomotor symptoms, involve the experience of sudden warmth on the upper body that can include perspiration and, at times, chills.
The symptoms can span years, affecting women’s well-being, including their ability to sleep. They’ve also been linked to a heightened risk for high blood pressure and other risk factors for cardiovascular health.
Gynecologists say hormone therapy is considered the most effective option for treating these symptoms, but it is not recommended for all patients, such as for most breast cancer survivors.
This October, a new non-hormonal drug, Lynkuet, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after it was shown to reduce the severity of the symptoms experienced by women and gender-diverse people in menopause.
Patients take the medication orally each day before bed.
The FDA’s approval stemmed from data collected in clinical trials, which examined the safety and efficacy of Lynkuet for the treatment of moderate to severe hot flashes.
Gynecologist Wendy Wolfman says hormonal therapy will still be the go-to treatment for menopause symptoms, but she’s glad to see other tools available.
On July 25, Health Canada authorized Lynkuet.
Lynkuet is the second product in the class of medications called NK-1 receptor antagonists. Another – Veozah – has been available in Canada since March. It was approved by Health Canada last December.
Dr. Wolfman, the director of the Menopause Clinic and the Premature Ovarian Insufficiency Clinic at Mount Sinai, said, as mammals, humans’ temperature needs to be kept within a narrow range.
Researchers believe hot flashes are caused because of dysfunction in the brain’s temperature control centre that occurs when estrogen levels drop in menopause; the medications work by blocking receptors in part of the brain.
“We still recommend hormone therapy as the first-line treatment for women who are symptomatic,” said Dr. Wolfman, but that the new non-hormonal medications are “amazing additions” to gynecologists’ options.
– Kristy Kirkup
Open this photo in gallery:Animal organs help transplant patients
Nearly 600 Canadians are on the waiting list for a liver transplant each year, show the latest data – and some of them die before one becomes available. But now, there may be a way to safely bridge that gap.
This year, research from China involving a pig liver with altered DNA – through a process known as gene editing – has shown the mammal’s organ can temporarily keep humans alive.
In March, an article published in the research journal Nature detailed a groundbreaking procedure performed at Xijing hospital in Xi’an, China, where a gene-edited pig liver functioned inside a brain-dead patient’s body for 10 days. The surgery, called a xenotransplantation, marked the first time a pig liver had been put into a human.
Another study, published in the Journal of Hepatology this October, described a further breakthrough: the transplantation of a pig liver into a living human. The man survived 171 days after the procedure, including 38 of those days with the animal organ, which was removed after he developed complications.
For Deepali Kumar, medical director of the Ajmera Transplant Centre in Toronto, the research gives her hope that many lives could be saved if xenotransplantations of this kind can be replicated in Canada.
“There are not enough organs for everyone who needs them. People wait for several months for a liver transplant. They get very, very sick while waiting. Some don’t make it,” explained Dr. Kumar.
Deepali Kumar says xenotransplantation could be a big help in Canada, where demand for human organs outstrips supply.
The Ajmera Transplant Centre, Canada’s largest and affiliated with the University Health Network, performs over 600 transplants every year.
When Dr. Kumar saw the first study, she realized this was an opportunity to help all the Canadians on the waitlist: “We could use a pig liver to keep them alive.”
Xenotransplantation has become a much-studied area of research in recent years, particularly as doctors look to see if animal-to-human transplants could help ease the shortage of donated human organs.
Until this point, pig hearts and kidneys had been transplanted into humans, with varying degrees of success. Earlier this year, Chinese scientists reported transplanting a gene-edited lung from a pig into a brain-dead man.
Another transplant-related breakthrough that is becoming more common in Canada comes from human donors.
In a first for Canada, in May, 2024, a heart that had ceased beating for five minutes from a patient who was not officially brain dead – called death by circulatory criteria, or DCC – was reanimated for transplantation in Kingston, Ont.
The procedure, which uses a device nicknamed “a heart in a box” to preserve and revive the organ, is already routine in other jurisdictions, including the United States. Another DCC transplant was performed this September at UHN’s Toronto General Hospital.
Emerging research into the use of stem cells to repair and grow organs is another interesting area to watch, said Dr. Kumar. “The field is moving fast,” she said. “Every year we have exciting new discoveries.”
– Alanna Smith
Moderna Inc.’s vaccine-making facility in Laval, Que., made its debut this year, giving Canada more domestic capacity to deal with disease outbreaks.
Roger Lemoyne/The Globe and Mail
‘Manufacturing in Canada does help ensure access’ to vaccines, pharmacist Shelita Dattani says.
Homegrown COVID-19 vaccines
This fall, Canada marked an important milestone: Drugmaker Moderna Inc. began producing COVID-19 shots here at home for the first time, at plants in Laval, Que., and Cambridge, Ont.
The move came a few months after the federal government terminated a contract with another U.S. drugmaker, Novavax Inc., that had also been part of a government-supported push to make domestic vaccines. The Novavax agreement was cancelled after the company missed a regulatory deadline in December, 2024.
In September, the federal government said Moderna achieved a major milestone by producing the first made-in-Canada doses of its COVID-19 vaccine at its biomanufacturing facility in Laval.
It also called this a step forward in the government’s efforts to build a domestic vaccine supply chain, which will strengthen Canada’s ability to respond to public health emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored how Canada has been beholden to vaccine production in other countries.
Moderna’s Laval facility is its first plant outside the U.S. The company has been working on building plants also in Britain and Australia.
Stefan Raos, the general manager for Moderna Canada, told The Globe in September that the company was happy to be making vaccines in Canada because it is a country where “science is at the forefront.”
Shelita Dattani, a practising pharmacist on the executive committee of the Adult Vaccine Alliance, which advocates for access to inoculations, said that while she does not weigh in on specifics regarding any one manufacturer, she celebrates more domestic production.
“It’s always good to reduce reliance on global supply chains,” she said, especially when geopolitics or other factors disrupt them. “Manufacturing in Canada does help ensure access.”
– Kristy Kirkup
Open this photo in gallery:AI does the paperwork
Artificial intelligence scribes, which record and generate notes during doctors’ appointments, are the most widely implemented AI tool in health care. Even so, their use is still growing, and researchers say more than $1-billion in venture capital investments have been infused into the space in the last three years.
In 2025, almost 60 per cent of doctors said AI decreased the time they spent on administration, according to the Canadian Medical Association’s national survey. That’s a considerable increase from 2024, when 7 per cent reported using AI in their practice.
This fall, an article published by the JAMA network underscored some early health care improvements that have been documented related to the use of AI scribes, including more sustained physician attention for patients and improved patient understanding of care plans.
The article also points out, however, that patients’ feelings about the use of AI remains mixed, and it’s unknown how the increasing “breadth and depth of AI use in clinical practice” will change attitudes.
Kumanan Wilson at the University of Ottawa says the early response to AI scribes has been positive among doctors, but more study is needed.
Kumanan Wilson, a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Ottawa and a collaborator on the school’s AI and the Law initiative, said AI scribes have mostly been used in primary care and have been shown to reduce time spent on documentation by about 30 minutes a day.
Dr. Wilson said more studies are still needed on the effectiveness and impact of AI scribes, but that doctors have reported satisfaction in the technology’s early stages.
“I’ve heard, anecdotally, that people love it,” Dr. Wilson said, explaining that physicians say the scribes work well to capture the essence of conversations with patients.
As the use of AI scribes continues to grow, he said it’s important health care providers are vigilant about ensuring patients consent to their use. He said there are also outstanding issues to be discussed, including where data is held and who has access to it.
As well as taking notes, Dr. Wilson noted AI could be used to send prescriptions to patients, and remind them about appointments – and he’ll be watching how the technology evolves.
“We have to be cautious when we bring these things in, but it’s an exciting potential application.”
– Kristy Kirkup
Open this photo in gallery:Hope for rare diseases
Canadian experts have made significant progress in quickly diagnosing thousands of rare genetic diseases, but there has been little hope for treating such conditions. At least until now.
Physician-scientist Gregory Costain, who leads Toronto’s SickKids genetic medicine program, said a medical breakthrough in the United States offers a blueprint for Canada. In May, a 9½ -month-old boy with a rare genetic disorder – CPS1 deficiency – became the first patient to receive a custom gene-editing therapy to fix a life-threatening genetic mutation.
CPS1 deficiency is a metabolic disorder where the body can’t properly remove ammonia, which can lead to severe neurological problems, including vomiting and seizures. The disease is potentially lethal, especially in newborns. Usually, the liver clears ammonia from the blood with the help of an enzyme that baby KJ’s liver couldn’t produce because of his genetic mutation.
At the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, KJ received a customized CRISPR treatment, which has been decades in the making. It involved what is essentially a biological GPS directing “molecular scissors” to locate and alter the boy’s precise DNA mutation. KJ had three infusions that targeted his liver, the results of which have been promising.
“This is another beacon of hope for that broader rare disease community, which impacts a substantial minority of all Canadians,” said Dr. Costain.
Gregory Costain at SickKids hospital sees hope for rare diseases from a pioneering gene-therapy case in Philadelphia.
He said one obstacle with gene-editing treatments is that companies have generally been uninterested in developing costly therapies that would only help a small portion of the population. But Dr. Costain is hopeful that the same method used for KJ can target different mutations, which would make it more broadly applicable to patients with rare diseases – a bit like a screwdriver with interchangeable heads to fit any screw.
He said Canada has the people and the infrastructure to do this sort of work.
“One thing I’m excited about in Canada compared to the United States is that our public system, and the requirements that we operate within a public system, actually force us to think from the beginning around how we make access fair and equitable,” said Dr. Costain.
“We can’t stop at a single patient. We need to be able to ultimately offer these kinds of treatments, once they’re proven safe and effective, to everyone in need.”
– Alanna Smith and Ivan Semeniuk
Photo illustrations by The Globe and Mail (Getty Images) | Portraits courtesy of Sinai Health Foundation, Dr. Deepali Kumar, Ashley Metzger, University of Ottawa, SickKids
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