Blogs@BJUI

The BJUI team was most impressed with this year’s EAU Annual Congress which has just concluded in Milan. The scientific content was excellent - topical plenary sessions from key opinion leaders; lively poster sessions; superb video sessions and very high-quality courses run by the European School of Urology. The EAU are to be congratulated on consistently raising the bar with the quality of this meeting which is reflected in the huge delegate numbers again this year. The last two days had a…

The authors are to be commended for their unique investigation of an extended stage 1 SNM test period. To our knowledge, no other series has included a minimum 4-week duration and microbiologic testing. Optimal duration for the test phase has not been elucidated and initial responses are likely compounded by a short-term placebo effect that may dissipate after time. Knowledge of when maximal improvement occurs would define a population of true responders and reduce implant failure rates.…

Day 3, St Patrick’s Day, saw the Irish trying to lift their spirits having been beaten by Italy in the Six Nations rugby tournament the evening before. Cathy Pierce from European Urology donned a shamrock for the day but declined Declan’s suggestion to serve Guinness instead of champagne for the Platinum Journal’s cocktail hour. Our day started with the BJUI Editorial Board Meeting hosted by new Editor-in-Chief, Prokar Dasgupta. There was much enthusiasm for the new-look of the Journal and…

Saluti di Milano! This week the BJUI team are bringing you live updates from the European Association of Urology Annual Meeting in one of Europe’s most beautiful destinations - Milan. Our team has been Tweeting, Facebooking and now blogging from Europe’s premier urology gathering. In fact, we are the leading influencers in social media at this year’s meeting as shown by the metrics updated at Symplur where we registered the official hashtag #eau13.     Social media has really taken off…

The authors have reported a pathological analysis showing that various levels of nerve-sparing technique were reflected in the radical prostatectomy (RP) specimen. Intriguingly, the authors found that the fascia width on the left side was much wider than the right side in the RP specimen with the interfascial nerve-sparing technique. This is important information for robotic surgeons. Looking at the literature, almost twice as many positive surgical margins have been reported on the left…

When Prokar Dasgupta assumed the role of new Editor-in-Chief of the BJUI in January 2013, he outlined his vision and some of the major changes that the Journal would make as it transitioned to a new editorial team. After ten years of progress under Professor John Fitzpatrick, it was clear that we are now working in a much-changed publishing landscape, one that will change even more in the next few years. In particular, the way in which medical professionals receive information and interact with colleagues,…

Recently when researching on the Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo and his suffering with kidney stones, I stumbled upon a project on his famous masterpiece David. At the precise time, I was browsing BJUI and came across the article by Motofei et al, on the sexual side effects of finasteride as related to hand preference (right-handed or left-handed) for men undergoing treatment of male pattern baldness. This manuscript reminded me of several articles that measured different parts of the…

Hello colleagues. You look stressed. Your blood shot eyes have little golden crusty particles stuck in them. Oy. And your face has taken on a sickly grey hue. Have you missed me my pasty, swollen friend? Of course not. You are too busy with EHR, surgery, robots, family, research, horse meat chatter, papal scandals, Twitter, Facebook  and emails. Relax my people! Have you not read any of the latest research on productivity? It is clear – my hard working friend – that you are not resting…

Its happening and its happening fast. What the cardiothoracic surgeons in the UK have lived with for 8 years is coming to a specialty near you very soon. Individual urological surgeons results to be published openly, in the press in the UK from summer 2013. It’s a massive change to the way we work and to the way surgical data is presented. No longer will the interesting elements of the urological literature be studies of the results of a few surgeons in a few centres of world renown but rather…