Ben Challacombe

Posts

West Coast Urology: Highlights from the AUA 2016 in San Diego… Part 2

May 12, 2016/1 Comment/by Jonathan Makanjuola

By Ben Challacombe (@benchallacombe) and Jonathan Makanjuola (@jonmakurology)

The AUA meeting was starting to hot up with the anticipation of the Crossfire sessions, PSA screening and the MET debate that appeared to rumble on. We attended the MUSIC (Michigan Urological Surgery Improvement Collaborative) session. It is a fantastic physician led program including >200 urologists, which aims to improve the quality of care for men with urological diseases. It is a forum for urologists across Michigan, USA to come together to collect clinical data, share best practices and implement evidence based quality improvement activities. One of their projects is crowd reviewing of RALP by international experts for quality of the nerve spare in order to improve surgical outcomes.

The MET debate continues to cause controversy. In the UK there has been almost uniform abandonment of the use of tamsulosin for ureteric stones following The Lancet SUSPEND RCT.

The MET crossfire debate was eagerly awaited. The debate was led by James N’Dow (@NDowJames) arguing against and Philipp Dahm (@EBMUrology) in favour of MET. Many have criticised the SUSPEND paper for lack of CT confirmation of stone passage. Dr Matlaga (@BrianMatlaga) stated that comparing previous studies of MET to SUSPEND is like comparing apples to oranges due to different outcome measures. He recommended urologists continue MET until more data is published. More conflicting statements were made suggesting that MET is effective in all patients especially for large stones in the ureter. The AUA guidelines update was released and stated that MET can be offered for distal ureteric stones less than 10mm.

In a packed Endourology video session there were many high quality video presentations. One such video was a demonstration of the robotic management for a missed JJ ureteric stent. Khurshid Ghani (@peepeeDoctor) presented a video demonstrating the pop-corning and pop-dusting technique with a 100w laser machine.

One of the highlights of the Sunday was the panel discussion plenary session, Screening for Prostate Cancer: Past, Present and Future. In a packed auditorium Stacy Loeb (@LoebStacy), gave an excellent overview of PSA screening with present techniques including phi, 4K and targeted biopsies. Freddie Hamdy looked into the crystal ball and gave a talk on future directions of PSA testing and three important research questions that still needed to be answered. Dr. Catalona presented the data on PSA screening and the impact of the PLCO trial. He argued that due to inaccurate reporting, national organisations should restore PSA screening as he felt it saved lives.

There was a twitter competition for residents and fellows requiring participants to tweet an answer to a previously tweeted question including the hashtag #scopesmart and #aua16. The prize was Apple Watch. Some of the questions asked included; who performed the 1st fURS? And what is the depth of penetration of the Holmium laser?

UK trainees picked up the prizes on the first two days.

The British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) / BJU International (BJUI) / Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand (USANZ) session was a real highlight of day three of the AUA meeting. There were high quality talks from opinion leaders in their sub specialities. Freddie Hamdy from Oxford University outlined early thoughts from the protecT study and the likely direction of travel for management of clinically localised prostate cancer. Prof Emberton (@EmbertonMark) summarised the current evidence for the role of MRI in prostate cancer diagnosis including his thoughts on the on going PROMIS trial. Hashim Ahmed was asked if HIFU was ready for the primetime and bought us up to speed with the latest evidence.

The eagerly awaited RCT comparing open prostatectomy vs RALP by the Brisbane group was summarised with regards to study design and inclusion criteria. It is due for publication on the 18th May 2016 so there was a restriction of presenting results. Dr Coughlin left the audience wanting more despite Prof. Dasgupta’s best effort to get a sneak preview of the results! We learnt from BAUS president Mark Speakman (@Parabolics) about the UK effort to improve the quality of national outcomes database for a number of index urological procedures.

Oliver Wiseman (@OJWiseman) gave us a flavour of outcomes from the BAUS national PCNL database and how they are trying drive up standards to improve patient care. A paediatric surgery update was given by Dr Gundeti. The outcomes of another trial comparing open vs laparoscopic vs RALP was presented. There was no difference in outcomes between the treatment modalities but Prof. Fydenburg summarised by saying that the surgeon was more important determinant of outcome than the tool. Stacy Loeb closed the meeting with an excellent overview of the use of twitter in Urology, followed by a drinks reception.

It was not all about stones and robots. The results of the Refractory Overactive Bladder: Sacral NEuromodulation vs. BoTulinum Toxin Assessment (ROSETTA) trial results were presented. Botox came out on top against neuromodulation in urgency urinary incontinence episodes over 6 months, as well as other lower urinary tract symptoms.

The late breaking abstract session presented by Stacy Loeb highlighted a paper suggesting a 56% reduction in high-grade prostate cancer for men on long term testosterone. This was a controversial abstract and generated a lot of discussion on social media.

It has been an excellent meeting in San Diego and we caught up with old and met new friends. It was nice to meet urologists from across the globe with differing priorities and pressures. There was a good British, Irish and Australian contingent flying the flag for their respective countries. It was another record-breaking year for the #AUA16 on twitter. It surpassed the stats for #AUA15 with over 30M impressions, 16,659 tweets 2,377 participants. See you all in Boston for AUA 2017.

West Coast Urology : Highlights from the AUA 2016 in San Diego… Part 1

May 10, 2016/3 Comments/by Ben Challacombe

By Ben Challacombe (@benchallacombe) and Jonathan Makanjuola (@jonmakurology)

The 2016 AUA returned to the beautiful city of San Diego set on the shores of the Pacific in an excellent conference centre located in the centre of the town adjacent to the Gaslamp district. For a change the wifi was excellent and allowed enhanced levels of social media interaction and urological discussion. Opening these interactions were 2 key sessions which provoked much debate. Firstly the announcement that after over 10 years of trying the FDA has approved HIFU treatment although it seemed to get there through a slightly “de novo” pathway. Apparently the FDA approved it as an ablation tools but not for prostate cancer.

Although not directly approved for use in prostate cancer, that is exactly what it is going to be used for. A packed house saw a debate with evidence from both sides. Dr Nathan Lawrentschuk promoted the 4 Ds of HIFU. His key point was that 56/101 had a post treatment biopsy of which 51 where biopsy positive!

The second big session focussed on the AUA/SAR consensus statement document on prostate cancer diagnostics. This recommended a “High Quality” MRI should be strongly considered if patient has a rising PSA with a previous negative biopsy, has persistent clinical suspicion for prostate cancer or is undergoing a repeat biopsy. There was no mention of MRI for all at the pre-biopsy stage which many had hoped for and only 2 lines on trans-perineal biopsy as an option. This is of course related to health resources and the outpatient office-based nature of most USA urologists.

A welcome innovation was the Crossfire Sessions which pitted 2 well known advocates of one treatment against 2 with the opposite views. It was hardly debating of the Oxbridge variety but none the less did provoke some useful discussions. Topics included radical prostatectomy vs radiotherapy, endoscopic vs nephro-ureterectomy management of upper tract TCC, and enucleation at partial nephrectomy vs formal resection. Standing room only at the back of the halls but no real audience interaction or voting which was a shame.

The session which really woke everyone up was Rene Sotalo’s wonderful complication horror show. Bleeding, bleeding and more bleeding in a variety of ways. How would you handle this he asked? Pray I thought! But this and similar sessions clearly show the benefits of recording all cases and reviewing these DVDs if something goes wrong. The cause of some complications were only identified by review of the intra-operative tapes. Some clinical titbits learn’t included using only a horizontal incision for the camera port at RARP to reduce hernias and turning off pneumocompression stockings if there is a major venous injury to prevent excessive venous bleeding.

From a SoME perspective there was both good and bad. One poster showed that 40% of graduating US residents had publicly accessible unprofessional content on social media. Food for thought at the consultant interview no doubt, but on the other side SoMe ranks third in the acquisition of urological knowledge (and climbing…). One hack produced this tweeting guideline for all to reflect on.

Prof Prokar Dasgupta had the honour of presenting the widely anticipated session on emerging robotic technology . At last there appears to be some real competition to Intuitive’s dominance on the way. There are at least 3 credible robotic systems on the way. He finished with an intriguing slide on Dr Google being the most powerful doctor in the world!

Despite Europe and Asia moving towards the use of PMSA PET , the USA is not moving in this direction due to reimbursement issues if the PMSA molecule.

There was a lot of interest in a packed auditorium to see live surgery for a single use disposable fURS “Lithovue” with some reporting superior vision , optics and deflection.

There were some sceptics amongst the stone community with the environmental impact and cost effectiveness a concern.

With the popular Gaslamp district a stones throw away many delegates went after the conference for a meal and drinks. The local baseball team San Diego Padres was a popular destination with may watching baseball for the 1st time whist others had gone for a run along the harbour and even caught a sighting of some seals!

Here comes the sun

July 29, 2015/by Ben Challacombe

Sun, sea, sand and stones: BJUI on the beach.

Welcome to this month’s BJUI and whether you are relaxing on a sun-drenched beach or villa somewhere having a hard-earned break, or back at your hospital covering for everyone else having their time off, we hope you will enjoy another fantastic issue. After an action packed BAUS meeting with important trial results, innovation, social media and the BJUI fully to the fore, this is a great moment to update yourself on what is hot in urology. This is probably the time of year when most urologists have a little extra time to take the BJUI out of its cover or open up the iPad and dig a little deeper into the articles, and we do not think you will be disappointed with this issue, which certainly has something for everyone.

In the ‘Article of the Month’, we feature an important paper from Egypt [1] examining factors associated with effective delayed primary repair of pelvic fractures that are associated with a urethral injury. Do be careful whilst you are travelling around the world, as most of the injuries in this paper were due to road traffic accidents. They reported 76/86 successful outcomes over a 7-year period. When a range of preoperative variables was assessed, four had particular significance for successful treatment outcomes. The paper really highlights that in the current urological world of robotics, laparoscopy and endourology, in some conditions traditional open surgery with delicate and precise tissue handling and real attention to surgical detail are the key components of a successful outcome.

Whilst you are eating and drinking more than usual over the summer, we have some food for thought on surgery and metabolic syndrome with one of our ‘Articles of the Week’. This paper contains an important message for all those performing bladder outflow surgery. This paper by Gacci et al. [2] from an international group of consecutive patients clearly shows that men with a waist circumference of >102 cm had a far higher risk of persistent symptoms after TURP or open prostatectomy. This was particularly true for storage symptoms in this group of men and should influence the consenting practice of all urologists carrying out this common surgery.

Make sure you drink plenty of Drink HRW to stay well hydrated on your beach this August, as the summer months often lead to increased numbers of patients presenting to emergency departments with acute ureteric colic, so it seems timely to focus on this area.To this end I would like to highlight one of our important ‘Guideline of Guidelines’ series featuring kidney stones [3] to add to the earlier ones on prostate cancer screening [4]and prostate cancer imaging [5]. This series serve to assimilate all of the major national and international guidelines into one easily digestible format with specific reference to the strength of evidence for each recommendation. Specifically, we look at the initial evaluation, diagnostic imaging selection, symptomatic management, surgical treatment, medical therapy, and prevention of recurrence for both ureteric and renal stones. Quite how the recent surprising results of the SUSPEND (Spontaneous Urinary Stone Passage ENabled by Drugs) trial will impact on the use of medical expulsive therapy remains to be seen [6].

So whether you are sitting watching the sunset with a drink in your hand or quietly working in your home at night, please dig a little deeper into this month’s BJUI on paper, online or on tablet. It will not disappoint and might just change your future practice.

References

1 Koraitim MM, Kamel MI. Perineal repair of pelvic fracture urethral injury: in pursuit of a successful outcome. BJU Int 2015; 116: 265–70

2 Gacci M, Sebastianelli A, Salvi M et al. Central obesity is predictive of persistent storage lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) after surgery for benign prostatic enlargement: results of a multicentre prospective study. BJU Int 2015;116:271–7

3 Ziemba JB, Matlaga BR. Guideline of guidelines: kidney stones. BJU Int 2015; 116: 184–9

4 Loeb S. Guideline of guidelines: prostate cancer screening. BJU Int 2014; 114: 323–5

5 Wollin DA, Makarov DV. Guideline of guidelines: prostate cancer imaging. BJU Int 2015; [Epub ahead of print]. DOI: 10.1111/bju.13104

6 McClinton S, Starr K, Thomas R et al. Use of drug therapy in the management of symptomatic ureteric stones in hospitalized adults (SUSPEND), a multicentre, placebo controlled, randomized trial of a calcium-channel blocker (nifedipine) and an a-blocker (tamsulosin): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials 2014; 15: 238

Ben Challacombe
Associate Editor, BJUI

Further Randomised Controlled Trials are needed….No! say something original.

June 12, 2015/11 Comments/by Ben Challacombe

“As we all know, prostate/kidney/bladder cancer is a common disease…” aaargh!!! Of course it is, that’s why you are writing about it and trying to get this piece of work into this journal and why everyone who reads it might be interested; because it is so important and common! If we all know it anyway why are you bothering to tell us this whilst wasting time and your word count and not getting on with presenting the actual research? Anyone who doesn’t know that prostate cancer is pretty common isn’t a doctor let alone a urologist. This is found more often than I can stand and got me thinking about all the other scientific catchphrases and tactics that serve more to irritate than inform.

As the BJUI associate editor for Innovation and one of the triage editors, I read around 600 BJUI submissions each year as part of my role. This is not to mention the additional manuscripts I formally review for this journal and others and there are certain phrases and statements that really just make my blood boil. Time and time again the same statements come up that are put into medical papers seemingly without any thought and which add nothing other than serving to irritate the editor, reviewer and reader.

The throwaway statement that “further randomised trials are needed” is often added to the end of limited observational and cohort studies, presumably by young researchers and almost never adds anything. Anyone who has ever been involved with a surgical RCT will know how challenging it is to set one up and run one, let alone recruit to one which is why so few exist and why so many have failed. Just saying more RCTs are needed without thought to why they haven’t already been carried out just frustrates the reader and shows a lack of true comprehension of the subject. Suggesting an valid alternative to an RCT however might actually get people thinking.

So what else is in the wastebucket of things that cause journal irritation? Well conclusions that have no basis in the results that have been shown; such as XXX is a safe and generally acceptable procedure after 3 cases, of which one had a 2 litre blood loss; or we advise everyone to switch to our technique on the basis of this uncontrolled retrospective cohort. Another is YY is the “Gold Standard” even though this is just opinion that is usually very outdated and this way of doing things was really only the standard approach 20 years ago!

Failure to acknowledge the study limitations is another area that particularly winds me up especially when the authors did a procedure one way 500 times then subsequently did it 50 times in a subtly different way and state that the second is better without mentioning that they might have learnt a fair bit from the previous huge number of cases!

So please let me know what irritates you in a paper so I can watch out for it and makes sure never to use it myself

Ben Challacombe
Associate Editor, BJUI

The impact of the BJUI and what influences it today: does impact factor matter?

November 12, 2013/by Vincenzo Ficarra

Over the last decade, urological researchers have been increasingly interested with, and driven by, the impact factor (IF) of the journal to which they are submitting. This bibliometric tool measures the way in which a journal receives citations of its articles over time. IF is calculated by dividing the number of current citations a journal receives for articles published in the two previous years, by the number of articles published in those same years.

Although IF represents a proxy for the popularity of a journal within its field, several academic and scientific organizations now use the IF to judge the value of a scientist or of a research team using it for national and international academic evaluations. This questionable policy has generated a vicious circle that has driven authors to prefer journals with higher IFs and, consequently, journal editorial boards (and publishers) to plan (soft or strong) strategies to increase this index. As a result a higher IF attracts the best articles in the field and increases the number of subscriptions to a journal. There are a number of potential biases influencing the IF values including self-citation, the number of articles published per year, and the type of articles accepted. We will explain how all of these nuances can play a significant role in calculating the IF.

Some journals subtly suggest that authors and reviewers cite articles published in their own journal within the references of newly submitted papers. This slightly dubious practice can bias the true value of the IF. Reassuringly when looking at the urological journals, the self-citation factor generally seems to play a limited role, as most journals have a percentage <10%. The policy of the BJUI Editorial Board does not support a self-citation practice. The decision to start each BJUI issue with some editorial comments (the Editor’s Choice section) is only to offer to readers the opportunity to have expert comment on the most important papers published within each edition. Indeed, the invited authors are only requested to cite the featured article and no others from the BJUI.

The number of papers published per journal volume and throughout each year is another significant factor influencing the IF value. Table 1 clearly shows the wide variability in the number of papers published from 2010–2011 in the different urologic journals. The new BJUI policy is to significantly reduce the number of published papers/year. Reflecting this decision, the BJUI Editorial Board has agreed to significantly improve the review process with the aim of selecting only the most relevant and original of the submitted manuscripts. A new rapid triage review process should allow us to select only the best 30–40% of submitted manuscripts to send to 3–4 experts for a more focused and precise review process. This mechanism has produced a significantly increased rejection rate in favour, we hope, of a better selection of topics and papers for our readership [2].

*Table 1. Items cited in 2012 and items published in 2010–2011 in the most important urological journals. Data from ISI Web of Journal Citation Reports (JCR)*
Abbreviated Journal Title	Cites in 2012	Items published in 2010–2011	Impact Factor
EUR UROL	4.662	445	10.476
NAT REV UROL	580	121	4.793
PROSTATE	1.395	963	3.843
J UROLOGY	4.864	1316	3.696
J SEX MED	2.638	751	3.513
BJU INT	3.323	1091	3.046
WORLD J UROL	673	233	2.888
UROLOGY	2.843	1173	2.424
CURR OPIN UROL	360	164	2.195

Bibliometric analyses have shown that review articles are cited more frequently than full original research papers. Therefore publishing good quality review articles written by expert opinion leaders in the field represents an excellent strategy to increase a journal’s IF. Although, we recognize the impact of review articles on IF, the current policy of the BJUI remains unchanged with only relatively few review articles included in each issue. As a result we will continue to give maximal attention to the clinical and basic research papers.

Finally the IF is in many ways only an index of the popularity of a journal because it equally weights citations from highly reputed journals alongside citations from more obscure journals [1]. However a journal’s true credit is also based on the prestige of the citing journals and the Eigenfactor scores is currently used to reflect this measure. Table 2 shows that the BJUI is third of all urological journals according to this less popular bibliometric tool. Another contemporary measure of impact, particularly influenced through the internet is the “Klout Score”. This system, which uses social media analytics to rank users according to online social influence via the Klout Score, giving a numerical value between 1 and 100. The BJUI currently has a score of 56, higher than its contemporaries. Therefore we can conclude that the BJUI today is a journal with a good reputation throughout the urologic field.

*Table 2. Relationship between prestige (Eigenfactor® Score) and popularity (Impact Factor score) of urological journals. Data from ISI Web of Journal Citation Reports (JCR)*
Rank	Abbreviated Journal Title	Eigenfactor^® Score	Impact Factor	IF rank
1	J UROLOGY	0.08109	3.696	4
2	EUR UROL	0.05503	10.476	1
3	BJU INT	0.04248	3.046	7
4	UROLOGY	0.03896	2.424	11
5	J SEX MED	0.01738	3.513	6
6	PROSTATE	0.01624	3.843	3
7	J ENDOUROL	0.01571	2.074	15
8	NEUROUROL URODYNAM	0.00897	2.674	10
9	WORLD J UROL	0.00750	2.888	8
10	INT J UROL	0.00582	1.734	16

The editorial board of a traditional urological journal like the BJUI must take into consideration both the IF and other scoring systems as indicators of its popularity and prestige. The strategies we employ to give better bibliometric parameters should predominantly reflect an increase in the quality of the papers published as we must remember that the journal is primarily produced for the readership and not just for those who wish to publish in it [3].

Vincenzo Ficarra¹, Associate Editor,
Ben Challacombe², Associate Editor,
Prokar Dasgupta², Editor in Chief

¹Department of Experimental and Clinical Medical Sciences, Urology Unit, University of Udine, Italy. ²King’s Health Partners, London UK

References

Franceschet M. The difference between popularity and prestige in the sciences and in the social sciences: a bibliometric analysis. J Informetr 2010; 4: 55–61
Dasgupta P. The most read surgical journal on the web. BJU Int 2013; 111: 1–3
Schulman CC. What you have always wanted to know about the impact factor and did not dare to ask. Eur Urol 2005; 48: 179–181

Original publication of this editorial can be found at: BJU Int 2013; 112: 873–874, doi: 10.1111/bju.12472

Movember: The power of the Mo!

October 25, 2013/15 Comments/by Ben Challacombe

The word Mo is Australasian slang for a moustache and whilst not a northern hemisphere phrase this hasn't prevented rapid dissemination across the globe. Although originally an innovation solely in Australia and New Zealand for its first 6-7 years, Movember is now taking the world by storm with the UK and Canada leading the way. Staggeringly last year in the UK more than 363,000 men grew a hairy upper lip and in doing so raised over £27 million.

The Movember foundation donates the proceeds to men's health charities which is primarily (around 70%) prostate cancer but also donates to charities supporting mental illness and this year will contribute to the orchid trust for testicular cancer. Money raised from the UK campaign goes to Prostate Cancer UK, which received £14.6m for the year to April 2013, and the Institute of Cancer Research, which received £299,891 for the same period.

When working in urology clinics where one meets up to 20 new patients a day that's many conversations about this issue helping to raise awareness and hopefully directing people to the website to donate to the UK Movember site.

Prokar Dasgupta outside the BJUI offices in Movember 2012

So Mo brothers and sistas let’s keep up the good work and prepare for another bumper crop of upper lip hair!

Ben Challacombe Associate Editor, BJUI

Technological Innovation in the BJUI

October 7, 2013/by Prokar Dasgupta

Time waits for no man St. Marher, 1225

Urology is arguably the leading technology driven surgical specialty. This is no accident. As surgeons we have always looked towards minimal invasion to reduce the trauma of access to our patients. One would have thought that the advent of drugs for BPH and OAB would perhaps reduce our hunger for technology.You can visit One Click Power if you are always hungry for knowing trends in technology. On the contrary, many urologists have moved on to effective alternatives to TURP such as HoLEP and having learnt the lessons from previous unproven over enthusiasm, relied on the results of high quality randomised trials before accepting the results.

The BJUI has a long history of publishing innovative manuscripts in the fields of basic science, imaging and therapeutics. We aim to bring the readership entire new paradigms in surgical diagnostics and treatment. Indeed while we enjoy #ERUS13 in sunny Stockholm, the autumn sunshine reminds us of the role played by robotics in the steady rise of technological innovation. This “sub specialty” has become so prominent that the EAU are soon accepting ERUS and its committee as an integral part of the European Association of Urology. The randomised trials, meta analysis and health technology assessments are gradually appearing in contemporary literature such that it is no longer true to say that robotics is just a fad backed up by little or poor evidence. Robotics remains one of the most highly cited parts of the BJUI and therefore together with laparoscopy has its own dedicated section. We were pleased to publish the novel method of suprapubic catheterisation as an alternative to the urethral route after robotic prostatectomy [1] which led to much conversation on the BJUI twitter page. Our readers ultimately decide whether to adopt a particular technique or technology and are now able to vote via the BJUI Poll.

Last month, Mahesh Desai demonstrated microPCNL in London. The technology is truly breathtaking. It is hard to believe that light and image transmission as well as stone disintegration can be effectively achieved via a needle so thin! We almost stopped doing robotics and were thinking of re-training to become stone surgeons. Mahesh and his team went on to back up the technology with a randomised comparison against flexible ureterorenoscopy [2]. It should come as no surprise that such an article should come from the sub-continent where stone disease is endemic.

And the technological innovations in the BJUI continue. This month we present three rather different articles for your reading pleasure. The first is an international collaboration demonstrating the ideal dose and safety of photodynamic TOOKAD therapy (a light-activated vascular occluding agent) in localised prostate cancer. Nearly 80% of patients had negative biopsies at 6 months [3]. Next we evaluate the role of PET CT in bladder cancer patients undergoing cystectomy. With almost a 20% greater pickup than standard imaging, we may be able to save a number of patients a morbid operation in the presence of metastasis. Advanced imaging may also allow better stratification of patients for neo-adjuvant chemotherapy [4]. Finally, we have an exciting paper from Iran on the use of endometrial derived stem cells for creating bladder replacements and alternatives to meshes in prolapse surgery. The immuno and scanning electron micrographic images in this paper are just stunning [5].

The BJUI intends to continue leading technological innovation in urology. We will bring our readers early phase safety data on new technologies in addition to long-term results to truly judge their efficacy and durability. We hope you enjoy reading, citing and interacting with these articles online at bjui.org and ultimately translate them to your own clinical practice.

Prokar Dasgupta, Editor in Chief, BJUI
Ben Challacombe, Associate Editor, BJUI
King’s Health Partners

References

Ghani KR, Trinh Q-D, Sammon JD et al. Percutaneous suprapubic tube bladder drainage after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy: a step-by-step guide. BJU Int 2013; 112: 703–705
Sabnis RB, Ganesamoni R, Doshi A, Ganpule AP, Jagtap J, Desai MR. Micropercutaneous nephrolithotomy (microperc) vs retrograde intrarenal surgery for the management of small renal calculi: a randomized controlled trial. BJU Int 2013; 112: 355–361
Azzouzi A-R, Barret E, Moore CM. TOOKAD^® Soluble vascular-targeted photodynamic (VTP) therapy: determination of optimal treatment conditions and assessment of effects in patients with localised prostate cancer. BJU Int 2013; 112: 766–774
Mertens LS, Fioole-Bruining A, Vegt E, Vogel WV, van Rhijn BW, Horenblas S. Impact of ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) on management of patients with carcinoma invading bladder muscle. BJU Int 2013; 112: 729–734
Shoae-Hassani A, Sharif S, Seifalian AM, Mortazavi-Tabatabaei SA, Rezaie S, Verdi J. Endometrial stem cell differentiation into smooth muscle cell: a novel approach for bladder tissue engineering in women. BJU Int 2013; 112: 854–863

Original publication of this editorial can be found at: doi 10.1111/bju.12431. BJUI 2013; 112: 707.

Ben Challacombe, BJUI Associate Editor: Innovation

April 3, 2013/by admin Z.9

Ben Challacombe, BJUI Associate Editor for Technology and Innovation, talks about his role within the journal and the exciting BJUI changes towards the web and social media.