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The Spirit of Christmas

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It’s that festive time of year when everything in London seems to be subsumed by the preparations for Christmas festivities. I thought therefore that it might be appropriate to devote a few thoughts to the sadly departed Tim Christmas, the outstanding surgeon and urologist to the Charing Cross and Royal Marsden Hospitals who died two years ago and always loved his namesake festivities. Tim and I go back a long way. He was a medical student at the Middlesex Hospital in London when I was a trainee, and senior registrar at St Bartholomew’s when I was a Consultant there. He and I wrote a book together on prostate cancer, and we had some great times together at work and at AUA, EAU, SIU and ICS as well as other meetings in various parts of the globe.

Tim was a classic eccentric Englishmen, a great wit and an exceptional surgeon. Like Sir Lancelot Spratt he eschewed keyhole surgery in favour of a “maximally invasive” approach; this made him the acknowledged expert in the UK of para-aortic lymph node dissection and thoraco-abdominal excision of renal tumours with involvement of the inferior vena cava. Two technically difficult procedures which he learnt from his friend and mentor Bill Hendry. Bill like Tim was an exceptionally gifted surgeon.

Tim was a surgeon’s surgeon and a tremendous character (read Tim’s BJUI Obituary here). He is fondly remembered by fellow urologists, nursing staff and patients alike. Although Christmas comes once a year, sadly there will only be one Tim Christmas, the surgeon and we have lost him prematurely. He was a one-off, a product of his own special era, and we will most certainly never see his like again. If you have fond memories of or anecdotes about Tim please post them on this blog;  Tim has been sending to all of the patients baskets from Gift Tree and try to make their life a little happier, Merry Christmas to you all.

Roger Kirby, The Prostate Centre, London

Looking to plan the ideal Christmas function for your boss, workmates or staff? End of year is a busy time for everyone, and it’s refreshing to know that a relaxing time can be had on a skippered, catered function cruise.

It’s unbelievable and quite surprising that how fast, over half the year has already passed and it just seems like you celebrated New Year’s Eve last month. With the first half already over, don’t hope for the second half to stay back any longer and before you know it, Christmas will be knocking on your door waiting to tell you there’s a Santa stuck in your chimney. Now, with Christmas, comes the great office parties and the hassle you have to go through every year to organise everything to the point that it is pitch perfect. Because who wants a party ruined on Christmas Eve and especially not if it’s your responsibility. It’s only fitting that such a party, where your number of people is somewhere between 2 and 35, is done with a Boat Hire. They have the absolute best options and services for your office Christmas Party celebrations where all you have to do is make the booking and forget about doing anything else. The company will look after all your specifications and needs before arranging the experience of a lifetime for you at this year’s Christmas party.

If you are looking to make a huge impression on your staff then I fully suggest you to rent a yacht in montauk, some professional agencies offer a mesmerising package where you can charter a private boat for up to 35 people to take them on a cruise of the beautiful Yarra river. The package will include food and beverages that will be served onboard the cruise and can be tailor-made according to your requirements. If the number of people you’re taking with you is less than 10, then you can book the eco-friendly package and cut off the extra expenses. The new addition to the latest cruise packages given by a Boat Hire include a progressive dinner or lunch cruise of the Yarra River, and stopping at three different restaurants for a three-course meal, be it lunch or dinner.
If you’re looking to have a Christmas party and have a great adventure, then you can easily avail the self-drive hire where you can pack your picnic and cruise on the Yarra River. There will be boats available to you that can seat up to 12 passengers and you will require no boat license to hire and drive.

Boat Hire are offering three different routes for your Christmas party and you can book any one of the three. The first route is either of the three: Yarra river or Maribyrnong River or Williamstown, next up is St Kilda and Port Melbourne. All you will have to do is book a schedule and mention the number of people you’re planning to bring with you along with your contact and payment details. The hassle part of the deal is for us to look after and you to relax. What’s even better is that a Boat Hire are willing to offer packages according to all amounts of budgets and sizes and can make a special carved out plan according to your needs. If there was ever any easiness while planning a Christmas party.

Editorial: Minimally invasive surgical training: do we need new standards?

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The pan-European survey conducted by Furriel et al. [1] in this issue of BJUI is a timely address of a hot topic in urology.

More than 20 years have passed since the first laparoscopic nephrectomy was performed by Clayman et al. [2] in 1991, and now all urological major interventions have been performed with one or more different minimally invasive techniques (standard, single-site or robot-assisted laparoscopy); some of them have passed the judgment of time becoming ‘gold standard’ treatments, while others are still under evaluation. Specifically, the European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines recommend laparoscopic radical nephrectomy as the ‘standard of care’ over open surgery, report favorable outcomes for robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, and propose as optional treatments laparoscopic or robot-assisted partial nephrectomy and radical cystectomy [3].

Obviously, this surgical revolution brings two major new issues: (i) Starting from academic and training centres, hundreds of Urology Departments throughout Europe need to update their surgical knowledge and expertise, making senior urologists perform up-to-date procedures; (ii) Residents and young urologists require adequate and possibly standardised training in minimally invasive surgery, learning at least the basic laparoscopic skills. The study by Furriel et al. [1] correctly highlights both problems.

First, according to the survey, penetration of laparoscopy in the most important urological training centres is unexpectedly low. In fact, more than one out of four centers (26%) do not perform minimally invasive surgery, even for the ‘standards of care’, such as laparoscopic radical nephrectomy. Moreover, as the survey was conducted specifically on the topic of minimally invasive surgery, it is probable that unexposed residents were less interested in responding, making the data of penetration probably even worse than reported. This fact reflects a serious problem present in most training centres. While previously surgery slowly evolved, laparoscopy and technology brought sudden innovations, putting several senior urologists ‘out of the game’. Hence, today, training is needed not only for residents, but also for consultants. In the meantime, it is important that residents are trained in centres were minimally invasive surgery is already widely available. In this perspective, European educational authorities should endeavour to certificate the residents’ training centres, for example on the basis of adherence to EAU guidelines. Academic or non-academic training centres not adherent to guidelines (and thus not performing minimally invasive surgery) should therefore be deprived of residents.

Secondly, training residents in minimally invasive surgery can be approached in different ways, from low-cost self-made dry laboratories to expensive virtual reality or robotic three-dimensional simulators. According to the survey, >40% of centres have no training facilities available. It has been shown that self-built, cheap, dry laboratories are as efficient in training as the industrial ones [4], so that it is not a matter of costs but a matter of interest. We strongly believe that watching surgical videos, observing live surgeries and using (low-cost or not) dry laboratories are fundamental steps in acquiring the basic skills in laparoscopy, while the modular training proposed by Stolzenburg et al. [5] for laparoscopic radical prostatectomy is the best live training model and can be exported to other kinds of surgery, such as radical or partial nephrectomy. In the centres where robot-assisted surgery is available, working as a table-side assistant is another good way to acquire laparoscopic skills.

A great debate is currently ongoing about credentialing in minimally invasive surgery training [6]. Pragmatically, when the European training centres are certificated for adherence to the EAU guidelines, there will be no need for a specific credentialing in laparoscopic skills, because it will be included in the standard training path, together with endoscopic and open surgery.

In conclusion, the survey by Furriel et al. [1] shows that times are changed: the old axiom ‘big cut, big surgeon’ is not valid anymore. The emerging urological generations know it, and ask to be adequately trained. Training centres must evolve, because in 2013 minimally invasive surgery has formally to be considered as part of the standard urological armoury.

Antonio Galfano and Aldo Massimo Bocciardi
Department of Urology, Ospedale Niguarda Ca’ Granda, Milan, Italy

Read the full article

References

  1. Furriel F, Laguna MP, Figueiredo A, Nunes P, Rassweiler JJ. Training of European urology residents in laparoscopy: results of a pan-European survey. BJU Int 2013; 112: 1223–1228
  2. Clayman RV, Kavoussi LR, Soper NJ et al. Laparoscopic nephrectomy. N Engl J Med 1991; 324: 1370–1371
  3. EAU Guidelines, edition presented at the 28th EAU Annual Congress, Milan 2013. ISBN 978-90-79754-71-7. EAU Guidelines Office, Arnhem, The Netherlands. Available at: https://www.uroweb.org/guidelines/online-guidelines/. Accessed September 2013
  4. Beatty JD. How to build an inexpensive laparoscopic webcam-based trainer. BJU Int 2005; 96: 679–682
  5. Stolzenburg JU, Schwaibold H, Bhanot SM et al. Modular surgical training for endoscopic extraperitoneal radical prostatectomy. BJU Int 2005; 96: 1022–1027
  6. Lee JY, Mucksavage P, Sundaram CP, McDougall EM. Best practices for robotic surgery training and credentialing. J Urol 2011;185: 1191–1197

Beyond our wildest dreams

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In this podcast Prokar Dasgupta summarises the success of the BJUI over 2013. For more on podcasts, including how to record your own, go to Podcasts Made Simple.

 

If anyone had suggested to me in January 2013 that our full article downloads would increase by 15% and the Melbourne Consensus Statement on PSA testing would be viewed over 5000 times @ BJUI.org, I would have stared at them in disbelief. The launch of our web portal in addition to an innovative paper journal, has achieved just that. And much more. We remain one of the Big Three in urology with a Klout score greater than any of our colleagues. These are impossible to achieve via papyrus alone.

The common theme amongst all the fantastic innovation that our Associate Editors have introduced is the highest quality of original articles that we have attracted and published this year. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight them and thank all our authors for sending us their best manuscripts.

The updated Partin tables (2006–11) remains our most cited paper published in 2013 [1]. It is sheer coincidence that I selected it as our first article of the month in January. It has allowed surgeons to avoid lymphadenectomy during radical prostatectomy in non-palpable Gleason 3+4 disease as the risk of a positive lymph node is <2%. The accompanying 3 minute video on the BJUI Tube channel is an excellent summary for the busy urologist.

I had to appease a number of oncologists when Cooperberg and colleagues showed that radiation for prostate cancer was about 2.5 times more expensive than radical prostatectomy in a comprehensive lifetime cost-utility analysis [2]. Peace was rapidly established at the annual meeting of the British Uro-Oncology group (BUG) where I participated in a balloon debate on the subject this autumn.

The thematic variations continue. It seems that 12 weeks of Tadalafil is effective in ejaculatory and orgasmic dysfunction in patients with ED [3]. Sexual medicine remains an exciting section of the BJUI and I am grateful to the andrologists on our editorial board for diligently reviewing the large number of papers that we receive from investigators in this field.

And finally we had two practice changing randomised trials in stone disease. Plasma vaporisation performed better than balloon dilatation for creating PCNL tracts [4]. For the curious, there is a video demonstrating the method if you wish to learn it.

The Portland trial has a simple message that you just can’t ignore; a single dose of NSAID before ureteric stent removal prevents severe pain afterwards. This is going to become standard of care if it has not already [5].

Many of our readers will wonder why we continue with a paper journal when the web has been so successful? The map here shows our global reach, which includes a number of subscribers who prefer to, or by necessity, read the print journal (∼30%). Moreover in a BJUI Online Poll, 75% of our readers reported taking the paper journal out of its plastic sheath and reading it, with over 50% doing so within a week. The transition will thus take longer and while the web remains our main portal, the beautifully designed paper BJUI will still land on your doorstep.

Prokar Dasgupta
Editor in Chief, BJUI

Guy’s Hospital, King’s Health Partners

References

  1. Eifler JB, Feng Z, Lin BM et al. An updated prostate cancer staging nomogram (Partin tables) based on cases from 2006 to 2011. BJU Int 2013; 111: 22–29
  2. Cooperberg MR, Ramakrishna NR, Duff SB et al. Primary treatments for clinically localised prostate cancer: a comprehensive lifetime cost-utility analysis. BJU Int 2013; 111: 437–450
  3. Paduch DA, Bolyakov A, Polzer PK, Watts SD. Effects of 12 weeks of tadalafil treatment on ejaculatory and orgasmic dysfunction and sexual satisfaction in patients with mild to severe erectile dysfunction: integrated analysis of 17 placebo-controlled studies. BJU Int 2013; 111: 334–343
  4. Chiang PH, Su HH. Randomized and prospective trial comparing tract creation using plasma vaporization with balloon dilatation in percutaneous nephrolithotomy. BJU Int 2013; 112: 89–93
  5. Tadros NN, Bland L, Legg E, Olyaei A, Conlin MJ. A single dose of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) prevents severe pain after ureteric stent removal: a prospective, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. BJU Int 2013; 111: 101–105
Original publication of this editorial can be found at: BJU Int 2013; 112: 1051–1052. doi: 10.1111/bju.12524

 

 

 

Would you really do a radical prostatectomy on a man with known metastatic prostate cancer?

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This year’s final #urojc concluded with intense discussions on the role of local treatment (LT) in metastatic prostate cancer. One study author, @mbwilliams95 joined the conversation to provide valuable insights.

 

 

 

Despite the fact only a small number of Stage IV patients had LT between 2004-2010 (post docetaxel era), this population based study revealed statistically significant differences between overall survival (OS) and disease specific survival (DSS).

Treatment Patient number 5 yr OS (%) DSS (%)
Radical prostatectomy
(RP)		 245 67.4 75.8
Brachytherapy(BT) 129 52.6 61.3
No surgery or radiation (NSR) 7811 22.5 48.7

 

So, can this be the start of a paradigm shift?

We may need to question our conventional approach.

Although some would consider performing RP in this population,

Others disagreed

Tzelepi et al (J Clin Oncol 2011 Jun 20;29(18):2574-81) suggested that potentially lethal cancers persist in the primary tumor and may contribute to progression. This is a possible explanation for this study’s findings, which echoed earlier results by Swanson et al (J Urol. 2006 Oct;176: 1292-8) and Shao et al (Eur Urol 2013 May 21. [Epub ahead of print]). However, SEER lacks information regarding the extent of bony metastasis, an entity that undoubtedly influences patient survival. Furthermore, patients treated with RP were 10 yrs younger than the NSR group (62 vs 72), and had a higher proportion of those with PSA <20.

To reduce bias produced by significant comorbidities, authors excluded those dying within a year of diagnosis and found the 5-yr OS continued to be higher in patients undergoing RP (76.5%) or BT (58.2%). However, patients with three or more of: age ≥70 yr, cT4 disease, PSA ≥20 ng/ml, high-grade disease, and pelvic lymphadenopathy had a 5-yr OS survival (38.2%) and a DSS probability (50.1%) similar to NSR patients.

Several contributors identified that Will Rogers phenomenon may be at play

Ultimately, the jury is still out on what is the most effective treatment of significant prostate cancer

Studies (in addition to the follow-on cohort study arising from this review), are underway

To conclude, it has been

In spite of the global participation, much of the banter involved our US urological colleagues.  On this basis, the Best Tweet Prize has been awarded to a provocative tweet from our UK colleague Ben Challacombe (@benchallacombe).

Thank you to European Urology (@EUPlatinum) for allow open access to the article discussed this month.  Thank you to Nature Reviews Urology for supporting the Best Tweet prize, which is a complimentary 12 months on-line subscription to the journal.

We look forward to seeing you at the January #urojc.

 

Dr Janice Cheng is an Australian Urology Trainee, currently based at Western Hospital. She has an interest in teaching, and enjoys laparoscopies, endoscopies, as well as male/female incontinence management. Twitter @JustUro

Headline news: “Doctors and nurses may face jail for neglect”?

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It has been an important few weeks in for doctors in the United Kingdom, sensationalist headlines have been on the front pages of many of the national newspapers: “Doctors and nurses may face jail for neglect”

This has all stemmed for the publication of the Francis report and Berwick review into patient safety. They detail recommendations on how the National Health Service (NHS) can learn and improve the standard of patient safety. The Berwick report was led by Professor Don Berwick, an international expert and former adviser to US president Barack Obama, in patient safety. He was asked by the British Prime Minister David Cameron to carry out the review following the publication of the Francis Report into the breakdown of care at a Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Hospital.

Stafford Hospital is an NHS hospital in the West Midlands area of England where hundreds of hospital patients died as a result of substandard care and staff failings between January 2005 and March 2009. The Mid Staffordshire Trust failed to provide safe care in the wards, people lay starving, thirsty and in soiled bedclothes. Decisions about which patients to treat were left to receptionists, inexperienced junior doctors were put in charge of critically-ill patients, and nurses switched off equipment because they did not know how to use it. The culture of the hospital Trust was one of secrecy and defensiveness. The inquiry highlights a whole system failure.

Both reports highlight the main problems affecting patient safety in some hospitals in the NHS and makes recommendations on how to address them. It says that the health system must, amongst many things, recognise the need for wide systemic change by abandoning blame as a tool and trust the goodwill and good intentions of the staff. The use of quantitative targets must be approached with caution and they should never displace the primary goal of better care.

The main headline grabbing item was the recommendation that the UK Government should create a new general offence of willful or reckless neglect or mistreatment applicable both to organisations and individuals.

Organisational sanctions might involve removal of the organisation’s leaders and their disqualification from future leadership roles, public reprimand of the organisation and, in extremis, financial sanctions but only where that will not compromise patient care.

Individual sanctions should be on a par with those in Section 44 of the Mental Health Capacity Act 2005 in UK law, which states that a person can be found guilty of an offence if he ill-treats or willfully neglects a person who lacks capacity and if convicted could be sentenced to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or a fine or both.

So does this affect us as urologists?

As doctors our first duty of care is towards our patients and patient safety should be our number one priority. However, in light of the report there is the possibility of a custodial sentence to individual(s) where the standard of care falls far short of expectations and blatant neglect is proven. In the age of clinical teams, proving that one individual was at fault is very difficult.

There has been a recent case in the UK press in which a surgeon has been jailed for two and a half years for manslaughter for gross negligence of a patient.

In another case in Australia a 63-year-old American surgeon working in a hospital in Queensland faced complaints from hospital staff that he had botched operations, misdiagnosed patients and used poor surgical techniques. He was arrested in the US in 2008 and extradited to Australia to stand trial. He was jailed for seven years in 2010 after being convicted of criminal negligence leading to the deaths of three patients.

These are two isolated cases but both demonstrate that the days when problematic surgeons were quietly retired are over. Our actions will be scrutinised by an ever demanding public with complications not just being discussed in mortality and morbidity meetings locally but in some cases publicly and in extreme situations in the courts.

My question to the readers is: what happens to clinical staff in your individual countries when clinical negligence and neglect is accused? Is jail time a possibility if proven?

 

Jonathan Makanjuola is a Urology Trainee, Innovator and techie based at King’s College Hospital, London, United Kingdom. @jonmakUrology

Editorial: Does HAL assistance improve outcomes in patients who receive postoperative intravesical therapy?

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There is growing evidence that hexaminolevulinate (HAL) fluorescence cystoscopy increases detection of bladder cancer at the time of transurethral resection of bladder tumours (TURBT) and that this results in lower recurrence rates [1, 2]. One limitation in many prior studies was the lack of standardisation about the use of immediate postoperative chemotherapy, which has been shown to reduce recurrence in patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer [3]. This raises the question of whether the benefit of HAL in reducing recurrences would be eliminated if patients did in fact receive postoperative intravesical chemotherapy, which would help eradicate any missed residual tumour.

There have been several studies that attempt to bring clarity to this issue. A study by Geavlete et al. [4] randomised 362 patients suspected of having bladder cancer to HAL vs white-light (WL) TURBT with a single postoperative mitomycin C instillation given in all cases. The authors found that the recurrence rate at 3 months was lower in the HAL group (7.2% vs 15.8%) due to fewer ‘other site’ recurrences when compared with the WL group. There continued to be an advantage for the HAL group with lower 1- and 2-year recurrence rates compared with the WL group (21.6% vs 32.5% and 31.2% vs 45.6%, respectively). The study did not stratify patients specifically to those with low-grade non-invasive tumours but patients with single tumors had a trend toward less recurrence (23.3% vs 35.3%, P = 0.064).

Grossman et al. [2] published the long-term follow-up for 551 patients enrolled in a prospective, randomised study of HAL vs WL for Ta or T1 urothelial bladder cancer with similar rates of intravesical therapy in the two groups (46% and 45%, respectively). They found that the median time to recurrence was 9.4 months in the WL group and 16.4 months in the HAL group (P = 0.04) but they did not report specifically on patients who received postoperative intravesical therapy. A meta-analysis of raw data from prospective studies on 1345 patients with suspected bladder cancer evaluating HAL-assisted cystoscopy vs WL found that both patients with low- and high-risk disease had statistically significant lower recurrence rates [1]. This meta-analysis was unable to stratify based on use of postoperative intravesical therapy.

O’Brien et al. [5] performed a randomised prospective study of HAL-assisted vs conventional WL TURBT, with all patients scheduled to get a single treatment of postoperative intravesical mitomycin C. There were 86 and 82 patients with cancer in the HAL and WL groups who completed the 12 months follow-up, respectively. In this study, 63% and 77% of the HAL and WL patients received mitomycin C, respectively. There was an increased detection of carcinoma in situ (CIS) in the HAL group (26% vs 14%) but no significant difference in recurrence at 3 and 12 months. When stratifying by low-grade tumours, the 3-month recurrence rates for HAL and WL were 19% vs 9% and at 12 months were 16% vs 22%, so that no significant differences were noted but the study was not powered to evaluate this subgrouping.

What can be concluded then about whether HAL assistance improves outcomes in patients who receive postoperative intravesical therapy? It appears the results are inconclusive and this is not surprising. The risk reduction of postoperative intravesical chemotherapy is primarily limited to patients with a single low-grade papillary tumour and one would need to treat 8.5 patients with peri-TUR chemotherapy to prevent one recurrence [3]. The benefits of peri-TUR chemotherapy in patients at intermediate- and high-risk are not well established [6]. Most of the studies of HAL-assisted TUR have not treated with postoperative intravesical therapy systematically. The studies that have tried to uniformly give postoperative therapy have not been sufficiently powered to evaluate those patients most likely to benefit, namely low-grade non-invasive cancer. As such, one cannot determine whether the benefit of potentially detecting additional low-grade tumours by HAL in patients with low-risk disease could be matched by postoperative intravesical therapy and such a study would require a very large number of low-grade solitary papillary tumours. However, it would minimise the benefits of HAL to focus on the benefit in the lowest risk patients. A meta-analysis of randomised trials found that HAL reduced the risk of recurrence independent of level of risk, such that there was reduced recurrence in patients with CIS, T1 and high-grade disease [1]. These are patients for which immediate postoperative intravesical therapy has shown minimal benefit and for which the benefit of HAL cannot be explained away. Furthermore a small but meaningful number of low-risk patients can be found to have intermediate- or high-risk disease, which would change their subsequent management [4]. As such if one had to choose between approaches rather than apply both, the use of HAL would appear to result in a greater benefit in managing patients with bladder cancer.

Yair Lotan
Department of Urology, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA

Read the full article

References

  1. Burger M, Grossman HB, Droller M et al. Photodynamic diagnosis of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer with hexaminolevulinate cystoscopy: a meta-analysis of detection and recurrence based on raw data. Eur Urol 2013; 64: 846-54
  2. Grossman HB, Stenzl A, Fradet Y et al. Long-term decrease in bladder cancer recurrence with hexaminolevulinate enabled fluorescence cystoscopy. J Urol 2012; 188: 58–62
  3. Sylvester RJ, Oosterlinck W, van der Meijden AP. A single immediate postoperative instillation of chemotherapy decreases the risk of recurrence in patients with stage Ta T1 bladder cancer: a meta-analysis of published results of randomized clinical trials. J Urol 2004; 171: 2186–2190
  4. Geavlete B, Multescu R, Georgescu D, Jecu M, Stanescu F, Geavlete P. Treatment changes and long-term recurrence rates after hexaminolevulinate (HAL) fluorescence cystoscopy: does it really make a difference in patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC)? BJU Int 2012; 109: 549–556
  5. O’Brien T, Ray E, Chatterton K, Khan S, Chandra A, Thomas K. Prospective randomized trial of hexylaminolevulinate photodynamic-assisted transurethral resection of bladder tumour (TURBT) plus single-shot intravesical mitomycin C vs conventional white-light TURBT plus mitomycin C in newly presenting non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. BJU Int 2013; 112:1096–1104
  6. Kamat AM, Lotan YR. Perioperative intravesical therapy after transurethral resection for bladder cancer. J Urol 2010; 183: 19–20

Fellowships – a key ingredient or the ‘icing on the cake’?

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What is the ultimate endpoint of a residency or speciality training program? Is it to complete 5 or 6 years of training in core urological procedures? Is it to produce safe, competent independent urologists? Is it to achieve FRSC (Urol) certification? In an ideal world it would be a marriage of all three; a safe, competent, independent, certified, practising urologist ready and eager to tackle any urological referral. In reality, we know that not to be the case.

Urology is a broad and advancing speciality encompassing patients of all ages and both sexes involving a complexity of benign and malignant pathologies. It is unrealistic to be an expert in all the sub-specialties and be able to offer the best and least invasive treatments to our patients. Furthermore, with a necessary emphasis on patient safety, transparency and proficiency, surgical training programs face significant barriers in affording trainees the opportunity to operate, specifically in the working time directive era.

Fellowships are usually undertaken at the completion of higher surgical training scheme often in a centre of excellence overseas. Fellowships offer trainees intensive experience in their niche area. On completion of a coveted fellowship, trainees hope to have acquired and polished the required skills to practice independently in their chosen field.

A recent pan European survey of 219 urological residents demonstrated laparoscopy and robotics were available in 74% and 17% of centres respectively [1]. Only 23% of trainees report their exposure as ‘satisfactory’. 68% have not completed a laparoscopic radical nephrectomy as first operator. Despite this 81% are considering fellowships in laparoscopy.

Buffi et al., have called for a validated and structured training curriculum in robotic surgery [2]. Trainees acknowledge the challenges in the acquisition of such skills but the modularisation of training is the best way to learn a procedure. Step by step trainees can piece together the operations. Hours spent on simulators and in dry and wet laboratories enhances these techniques. Furthermore, the dual consoles offer invaluable experience in robotics, however, are scarcely available.

The governing bodies have a responsibility to maintain standards of training as well as a duty towards patients. Proficiency in modern techniques such as laparoscopy and robotics are deficient in most training programs. Training programs need to encompass these techniques in a modular fashion from an early stage to develop the skills of tomorrows’ urologists [3]. Fellowships will undoubtedly foster and enhance these skills but a core knowledge and technical proficiency even in a simulator setting should be encouraged.

In truth, our learning and development never should never stop.

‘Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever’ Mahatma Gandhi

Mr Gregory Nason is a Specialist Registrar in Urology at the University Hospital Limerick, Ireland

References

  1. Furriel FTG, Laguna MP, Figueiredo AJ, Nunes PT, Rassweiler JJ. Training of European urology residents in laparoscopy: results of a pan-European survey. BJU Int 2013; 112: 1223–28.
  2. Buffi N, Van Der Poel H, Guazzoni G,  Mottrie A, on behalf of the Junior European Association of Urology (EAU) Robotic Urology Section with the collaboration of the EAU Young Academic Urologists Robotic Section. Methods and Priorities of Robotic Surgery Training Program. Eur Urol 2013; epub ahead of print.
  3. Lee JY, Mucksavage P, Sundaram CP, McDougall EM. Best practices for robotic surgery training and credentialing. J Urol 2011; 185: 1191-7.

Picture Quiz

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Test yourself against our experts with our weekly quiz. You can type your answers here if you want to compare with our answers, or just click the ‘submit’ button below.

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Editorial: Better late than early for long-term survival in patients with recurrence after renal carcinoma

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In this paper, Brookman-May et al. [1] used a large multi-institutional database of over 13 000 patients from 23 centres in both Europe and the USA to examine the prognostic indicators of cancer-specific survival (CSS) in patients who had recurrence after primary surgery for RCC. Their analysis was based on a subset of 1712 patients who had recurrence during a median follow-up period of 50 months. All patients had undergone either radical nephrectomy or nephron-sparing surgery, with no evidence of metastasis at the time of surgery.

The authors have previously shown, in a related study based on a subset of 5000 patients from the same database, that lymphovascular invasion, Fuhrman grade 3–4, and pT stage > pT1 at the time of diagnosis were significantly associated with the development of late recurrence (defined as after >5 years) [2]. In this paper, the primary objective was to look at the effect of time to tumour recurrence (TTR) on CSS. In addition, clinical and histopathological comparisons were made between patients with early (<5 years) and late recurrence (>5 years).

Patients often want to know whether if they are recurrence-free after a period of time, their subsequent risk of dying from recurrence is reduced; this paper goes some way towards answering this question and showing that those with later recurrence had improved survival times. Specifically, the authors found that TTR was an independent predictor of CSS; i.e. if patients recurred early they had a worse CSS than those recurring late. This is similar to results from another group who reported that recurrent disease, particularly before 12 months, was associated with a poorer prognosis [3]. In the first 4 years of follow-up, a shorter TTR independently predicted lower CSS after recurrence [1]. When divided into those with early recurrence, Group A (N = 1402), and those with late recurrence, Group B (N = 310), patients in Group A were more likely to be male, of advanced age, have a greater tumour diameter and stage, have Fuhrman grade 3–4, with lymphovascular invasion and positive lymph node disease, than those in Group B. Patients in Group A had a 3-year CSS of 30% compared with those in Group B whose CSS was better at 41%. Age and gender were also independent predictors of CSS.

These results can help to guide the aftercare management of patients after primary surgery. Currently, primary surgery is the only recommended option for patients with localized RCC, although results from several phase III clinical trials looking at the role of adjuvant therapy, such as the SORCE, PROTECT and S-TRAC trials, are still awaited [4]. Furthermore, it is not known which group of patients are suitable for adjuvant chemotherapy, which is reflected in the subtly differing eligibility criteria for recruitment to the various trials [4]. The authors of the present study pointed out that a method of risk stratification may be useful to allow equal representation of early and late recurrence patients in treatment arms for clinical trials. Potentially, understanding the predictors of early recurrence may help to identify patients for whom adjuvant therapy may be beneficial.

Only 12% of patients with localized RCC in the present cohort developed recurrence after surgery [1]. This rate is lower than that found in the literature, where 20–30% recurrence rates of localized RCC have been reported [2, 5, 6]. Brookman-May et al. speculate that this lower rate is attributable to both an increase in early detection as well as improved surgical management in recent years. Furthermore, they acknowledge that the database is heterogeneous and that the study therefore has all the inherent limitations of a retrospective study.

The present paper clearly shows that the earlier the recurrence after surgery the lower the survival rate, but a clear strategy for the surveillance of localized RCC after primary surgery is currently lacking. Most follow-up protocols exercise a blanket ‘one for all’ policy with follow-up spaced at regular intervals to ensure patients who recur are detected early. Such a policy may not be intensive enough to detect early recurrence in some patients and may be excessive for the majority of patients where the risk of recurrence is low. Risk stratification of patients, by understanding the predictors of CSS after surgery, may help to tailor surveillance protocols to the individual and identify those for whom adjuvant therapy may be beneficial.

Kathie Wong and Ben Challacombe
The Urology Centre, Guy’s Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

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References

  1. Brookman-May S, May M, Shariat S et al. Time to recurrence is a significant predictor of cancer-specific survival after recurrence in patients with recurrent renal cell carcinoma – results from a comprehensive multi centre database (CORONA/SATURN Project). BJU Int 2013; 112: 909–916
  2. Brookman-May S, May M, Shariat SF et al. Features associated with recurrence beyond 5 years after nephrectomy and nephron-sparing surgery for renal cell carcinoma: development and internal validation of a risk model (PRELANE score) to predict late recurrence based on a large multicenter database (CORONA/SATURN Project). Eur Urol 2012; 64: 472–477
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  6. Breda A, Konijeti R, Lam JS. Patterns of recurrence and surveillance strategies for renal cell carcinoma following surgical resection. Expert Rev Anticancer Ther 2007; 7: 847–862
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