Articles of the week

A test to exclude the presence of aggressive prostate cancer would be highly desirable. In the article by Wysock et al. [1], the authors examine pathological results in 75 men who underwent 12-core systematic biopsy using the Artemis device; all had a pre-biopsy MRI showing no suggestion of cancer. In 74 patients no cancer with Gleason score ≥7 was found on biopsy, which translates into a remarkable 98.7% negative predictive value (NPV) for potentially aggressive disease. The implication is that…

Every Month the Editor-in-Chief selects an Article of the Month from the current issue of BJUI. The abstract is reproduced below and you can click on the button to read the full article, which is freely available to all readers for at least 30 days from the time of this post. In addition to the article itself, there is an accompanying comment written by a prominent member of the urological community. This blog is intended to provoke comment and discussion and we invite you to use the comment…

Introduction In the last few years there have been concerted attempts at using the power of the immune system as an effective treatment option for cancer. This has become possible as our understanding of the workings of the immune system has improved. Tumours form because of failure of the organism to destroy a rogue, mutated cell in an appropriate way. Once the tumour is formed it can further develop when the immune system fails to contain and control it and certain equilibrium is lost…

Every Week the Editor-in-Chief selects an Article of the Week from the current issue of BJUI. The abstract is reproduced below and you can click on the button to read the full article, which is freely available to all readers for at least 30 days from the time of this post. In addition to the article itself, there is an accompanying editorial written by a prominent member of the urological community. This blog is intended to provoke comment and discussion and we invite you to use the comment…

In a study in this issue of BJUI, Aghazadeh et al. [1] were able to show that there was a significant relationship between simulated robotic performance and robotic clinical performance. The authors conclude that this supports the implementation of such robotic training tools in a standardized robotic training curriculum. Evidently, particularly in minimally invasive surgery, we must assess and learn from our surgical errors in order to prevent them in future [2]. For this, the dream scenario…

Performance of robotic simulated skills tasks is positively associated with clinical robotic surgical performance Monty A. Aghazadeh*,†, Miguel A. Mercado*,†, Michael M. Pan†, Brian J. Miles ‡ and Alvin C. Goh*,‡   *Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Education (MITIE), Houston Methodist Hospital, †Scott Department of Urology, Baylor College of Medicine, and ‡Department of Urology, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX, USA   Objective To…

Every Week the Editor-in-Chief selects an Article of the Week from the current issue of BJUI. The abstract is reproduced below and you can click on the button to read the full article, which is freely available to all readers for at least 30 days from the time of this post. In addition to the article itself, there is an accompanying editorial written by a prominent member of the urological community. This blog is intended to provoke comment and discussion and we invite you to use the comment…

One of the great triumphs in Urology is the transition of prostate cancer surgery from a universally morbid operation to one that now focuses on postoperative quality of life. This paradigm of cancer survivorship focuses on managing new, recurrent, or persistent symptoms. In this article by Bernat et al. [1], men within the Michigan Prostate Cancer Survivor Study were surveyed to identify factors that increase the need for additional prostate cancer survivorship information. Previous studies…

Every Month the Editor-in-Chief selects an Article of the Month from the current issue of BJUI. The abstract is reproduced below and you can click on the button to read the full article, which is freely available to all readers for at least 30 days from the time of this post. In addition to the article itself, there is an accompanying editorial written by a prominent member of the urological community. This blog is intended to provoke comment and discussion and we invite you to use the comment…