Journal Reviews
The EP2 receptor – a novel target for prostate cancer?
This basic science paper sets out to evaluate the effects that celecoxib, a selective cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor, have on prostate cancer cell lines and evaluated the mechanisms behind these effects. COX-2 induces the production of prostaglandins, which promote cell proliferation...
Reducing the burden of NMIBC: outpatient laser management in morbid patients
With non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) posing a significant burden on urological departments, alternative ways of safely and effectively managing these patients with a minimally invasive approach is desirable. As rates of recurrence are high but progression rates low, and...
Comparative effectiveness of nephron sparing surgery vs ablation
Nephron sparing surgery (NSS) and minimally invasive modality of thermal ablation have attracted great attention as an alternative surgical treatment to radical nephrectomy (RN) for renal tumours <4cm. High quality evidence comparing disease specific survival (DSS) is lacking. This issue...
Urethral sphincter function before and after radical prostatectomy
This paper from Holland will be useful for urologists involved in radical prostatectomy (RP) for cancer of the prostate. It presents a PubMed search between 1980 and 2012. Twenty-five out of 124 articles were further analysed, mainly English-language papers. Several...
Can antibiotics reduce ‘unnecessary’ prostate biopsies?
With numerous factors capable of influencing prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels and therefore the likelihood of biopsy, this multi-centred randomised controlled trial (RCT) was designed to see if two weeks of ciprofloxacin compared to placebo would significantly reduce PSA levels...
Has laparoscopic radical prostatectomy had its day?
Over recent years there has been a massive uptake in robotic surgery particularly for robot-assisted prostatectomy. The drive for this has been patient and physician led with little in the way of prospective randomised trials showing benefits over established operative...
Surgical and pathological outcome of partial nephrectomy: robotic versus laparoscopic approach
Nephron sparing surgery has become the standard surgical treatment for small renal masses (<4cm). Laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) is shown to be superior to the open approach (OPN) in peri and postoperative morbidity; however, it requires advanced skills and has...
Can PET/CT help in selecting treatment for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer more appropriately?
Radical cystectomy is one of the most drastic procedures that urological patients have to undergo with a five-year mortality of around 50% in those with organ-confined disease at presentation. Traditional imaging is with contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) but lymphadenectomy often...
Cryotherapy for small renal masses: better than surveillance?
With the rapid rise in incidental small renal mass detection, some of which have malignant potential, comes the need to either survey or treat these masses safely and with minimal morbidity. This large series of 147 patients with 171 masses,...
Open radical prostatectomy vs. robotic prostatectomy: early oncological outcome
There is currently a trend towards robot-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (RALP) as opposed to open radical prostatectomy (ORP) despite ongoing debates about oncological outcomes in patients treated for prostate cancer (PCa). Several papers have compared both surgical approaches but available...
The evaluation of CT urography in the haematuria clinic
This retrospective study examined the records of 1000 patients attending a haematuria clinic over a two-year period. All patients over 40 with visible (VH) or non-visible haematuria (NVH) had a computed tomography urogram (CTU) and a flexible cystoscopy (if not...
