The much awaited results of the STAMPEDE study of abiraterone for hormone naive prostate cancer was simultataneously presented at #ASCO17 and published ‘on line ahead of print’ in the NEJM. The formal title of the study was “Abiraterone for Prostate Cancer Not Previously Treated with Hormone Therapy”. Briefly, the study randomised 1917 men with locally […]
We have all done it. We’ve all shaken our heads with bemusement when men have severe symptoms, as would be defined by the IPSS, yet their response to the quality-of-life question would either be ‘delighted’ or ‘satisfied’. Likewise, we may see men who have objective multiple-fold improvement in their urinary flow rates after a BPH […]
The world of predatory scientific publishing had a major ‘win’ when Jeffrey Beall’s blog “Scholarly Open Access” was suddenly emptied of content in January 2017. Beall was tireless in his attempts to expose the unscrupulous behaviour of predatory open access journals whose objective was nothing other than to extract author publication charges (APCs) from unwitting […]
The International Urology Journal Club on Twitter is now well into its 4th year. The subject for the March 2016 discussion was a paper published in the BMJ entitled “Second Malignancies after radiotherapy for prostate cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis”. Lead and senior authors, Chris Wallis and Rob Nam were kind enough to make themselves […]
Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of chatter about a new Social Media platform. Just when you thought that we had exhausted all possible ways that people could interact online, live video streaming is the talk of the town. Last month, two competing live video streaming apps were launched. Meerkat initially […]
I was first introduced to Vine by my good friend Dr Fernando Gomez Sancha over a very enjoyable dinner in Milan during the European Association of Urology meeting in March 2013. I thought that the concept was interesting and signed up on the spot. Vine is a relatively new social media platform that allows users […]
November marked the first anniversary of the International Urology Journal Club on Twitter. As far as we are aware, our #urojc was the first journal club on Twitter using the asynchronous format. Prior to our commencement and unknown to us, a very successful real time journal club had been established with great success. Our major […]
At the American Urological Association meeting in San Antonio in May 2005, I was introduced to a four engineers from a small start up company called NC2 (New Company 2). It had at that time been recently spun off from the medical device incubator company Exploramed. They had no product and not even a prototype […]
For as long as I have been operating independently, music has been an essential part of my operating theatre environment. If there is no music playing in the background, it is to me as if there is a missing component of the “time out” check list that is carried out by surgical teams prior to […]
The International Urology Journal Club on Twitter discussion for February 2103 was based upon the recently published Prostate Cancer Outcomes Study in the New England Journal of Medicine on 31 January 2013. The originally planned discussion paper that was only hours away from being announced when it became apparent through Twitter notification by @NEJM that […]