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5th International Neuro-Urology Meeting (INUM)

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The Annual Congress of the International Neuro-Urology Society (INUS), organized by the Swiss Continence Foundation (SCF)

Neurogenic urinary tract, sexual and bowel dysfunction is highly prevalent and affects the lives of millions of people worldwide. It has a major impact on quality of life and, besides the debilitating manifestations for patients, it also imposes a substantial economic burden on every healthcare system.

It was a great honour and pleasure to organize the 5th International Neuro-Urology Meeting (INUM), which took place from 25-28 January 2017, in Zürich, Switzerland. We are proud to announce that the International Neuro-Urology Meeting, organized under the umbrella of the Swiss Continence Foundation (www.swisscontinencefoundation.ch), has become the official annual congress of the International Neuro-Urology Society (INUS, www.neuro-uro.org), a charitable, non-profit organization aiming to promote all areas of Neuro-Urology at a global level and whose inauguration was inspired during the last INUMs.

The world’s leading experts in Neuro-Urology provided an overview on the latest advances in research and clinical practice of this rapidly developing and exciting discipline. This unique meeting combined state-of-the-art lectures, lively panel discussions, and hands-on workshops with emphasis placed on interactive components. There were many opportunities to exchange thoughts, experiences and ideas and also to make new friendship.

The Swiss Continence Foundation Award: To promote the next generation of outstanding young researchers and clinicians who represent the future of Neuro-Urology, the prestigious Swiss Continence Foundation Award of 10’000 Swiss francs was awarded to the best contribution from a young Neuro-Urology talent: Marc Schneider from Zürich, Switzerland, convinced the international jury with the presentation of his PhD project “Anti-Nogo-A antibodies as a potential causal treatment for neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction after spinal cord injury”. He demonstrated in an animal model that intrathecally applied antibodies against the central nervous system protein Nogo-A which inhibits nerve fibre growth had beneficial effects on lower urinary tract dysfunction in rats with incomplete spinal cord injury by re-establishing a physiological micturition and preventing detrusor sphincter dyssynergia. This effect presumably occurs due to neuronal re-wiring of descending micturition circuits facilitated by the anti-Nogo-A antibodies. Anti-Nogo-A immunotherapy enters currently clinical trials in humans and could become a unique causal treatment option for lower urinary tract dysfunction in patients with incomplete spinal cord injury.

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One of many other highlights was the joint presentation of the EAU Secretary General Christopher R. Chapple and the BJUI Editor-in-Chief Prokar Dasgupta on the challenging topic “What should the neuro-urologist learn from the onco-urologist and vice-versa?”

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Finally, we are delighted to announce the 6th International Neuro-Urology Meeting to be held in Zürich, 25 to 28 January 2018. Save the date! For details please visit: www.swisscontinencefoundation.ch. We are looking forward to seeing you in Zürich!

Thomas M. Kessler, SCF Chairman and INUS Vice-President

Ulrich Mehnert, SCF Vice-Chairman and INUS Treasurer

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Key Hashtags: Incorporating Ontology tags into articles

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The urology tag ontology project defines a list of hashtags to standardise descriptors for use in social media. This was an agreed list by crowd sourcing the urological social media community. The project itself is discussed in more detail in Alexander Kutikov’s recent blog.

New for 2017, at the BJUI we are phasing in hashtags into our journal articles under the ‘Key Words’ – so effectively Key Hashtags if you like. The aim of this is threefold.

  • Firstly, to guide readers to relevant hashtags if they are unfamiliar with them so hoping to reinforce the standardisation of these tags.
  • Secondly, we hope that this will ensure that urologists tweeting about articles will use the correct relevant ontology hashtags so ensuring a constant thread on Social Media.
  • Lastly by incorporating hashtags into articles this should encourage wider use of social media amongst the urological community.

ontologyprojectusageThe daily use of urology ontology tags over recent weeks (source: Symplur)

An example is the article of the month for January. Whilst these may seem obvious for some readers, tags such #PCSM (Prostate Cancer Social Media) have not necessarily become widely known.

Hopefully this innovation will be useful to our readers and promote both the ontology project and correct use of hashtags amongst fellow urologists.

ontologyhashtagsList of Urology Tag Ontology hashtags (click image for larger image)

 

Matthew Bultitude is BJUI Associate Editor for the Web.

 

 

The impact factor may be flawed but important

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It has been a nice summer for the BJUI. Our impact factor has gone up to 4.387, the highest ever in the history of the Journal and we made the Altmetrics Top 50 for the first time ever with a score of 1166, Nature being the numero uno. I wanted to thank our editorial team, readers, authors and reviewers for their dedication and commitment, which made this possible.

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The question is how did we do this? For a journal without official society guidelines, it was not easy. So we had to focus on original articles rather than reviews and guidelines. There were three essential steps:

  1. Publishing the highest quality, citable papers irrespective of geographical location [1] – for example, this month we have highlighted the importance of personalised medicine in BPH from Taiwan [2], whereby the authors show that an endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) genetic polymorphism has a negative impact on response to α-blockers.
  2. Reducing the number of papers published while selecting clinically relevant, large prospective studies and trials – an example of this is the LAParoscopic Prostatectomy Robot Open (LAPPRO) study from Sweden [3], showing that even in very-low-risk prostate cancer, upgrading after radical prostatectomy occurs in over a third of patients and that the functional outcomes are not as good as expected.
  3. Amplifying our content through social media – this means that we believe in interaction with a wider audience, immediacy of response, and are not afraid of the occasional controversy and debate. An example is the comment on clostridium histolyticum collagenase followed by a brief editorial on what may increasingly be seen as an important treatment option for Peyronie’s disease [4].

Many consider the impact factor of a journal as a ‘gaming’ exercise, flawed by its very nature. I was very pleased to receive a WhatsApp from one of my colleagues saying how pleased he was that at the BJUI we have always played ‘with a straight bat’. An important consideration is that Universities often count original papers in the best journals for measuring academic output, which in turn drives income from various sources. In the UK this is given the term ‘returnable’ when considered within a system called the Research Excellence Framework. I am really pleased that the BJUI is now ‘returnable’ with its new impact factor and is seen as a serious player within a highly demanding system. I am aware that this also true for other international institutions, which is in keeping with our global presence as a journal without boundaries.

Prokar Dasgupta @prokarurol
Editor-in-Chief, BJUI 

References

1 Dasgupta P. Quality has no boundaries. BJU Int 2014; 113: 1

 

2 Lee Y-C, Juan Y-S, Liu C-C et al. The association of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) G894T gene polymorphism with responsiveness to a selective a 1-blocker in men with benign prostatic hyperplasia related lower urinary tract symptoms. BJU Int 2016; 118: 313–19

 

3 Carlsson S, Jaderling F, Wallerstedt A et al. Oncological and functional outcomes 1 year after radical prostatectomy for very low risk prostate cancer. Results from the prospective LAPPRO trial. BJU Int 2016; 118: 205–12

 

4 Poullis C, Shabbir M, Eardley I, Mulhall J, Minhas S. Clostridium histolyticum collagenase – Is this revolutionary medical treatment for Peyronie’s disease? BJU Int 2016; 118: 186–92

 

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