Genitourinary Cancers

The advantages that robotic technologies bring to prostate procedures, partial nephrectomies, and other surgeries that can involve complex reconstruction are not readily apparent in simple extirpative surgeries such as radical nephrectomy. This raises two questions: Are robots being used in radical nephrectomies and if so, why?

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have identified new potential therapeutic targets for muscle-invasive bladder cancer, including important genes and pathways that are disrupted in the disease.

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Mayo Clinic researchers have found amplification of HER2, a known driver of some breast cancers, in micropapillary urothelial carcinoma and have shown that the presence of HER2 amplification is associated with particularly aggressive tumors.

Preoperative hypoalbuminemia is a risk factor for complications following radical cystectomy, say researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Patients with chronic kidney disease who undergo robot-assisted partial nephrectomy for kidney cancer have minimal loss of renal function-a smaller amount even than patients with normal kidney function, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, who say their study is the largest of its kind.

Both the death rate and incidence rate for prostate cancer continues to decline, according to the latest round of statistics from leading U.S. cancer groups.

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Prostate cancer has made its way into another set of Choosing Wisely recommendations, this time from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Urology drugs and devices in the pipeline from AltheRx Pharmaceuticals, TARIS Biomedical, AstraZeneca, NxThera, NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, and OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals.

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The first phase II study to investigate the use of the targeted therapy everolimus (Afinitor) for the initial treatment of advanced papillary kidney cancer has shown that it is successful in slowing or preventing the spread of the disease.

Standard and reduced high-dose volume radiation therapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer provide similar tumor control and decreased late toxicity when compared to surgery, say the authors of a study from the United Kingdom.

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The tyrosine kinase inhibitors pazopanib (Votrient) and sunitinib (Sutent) had similar benefits in delaying progression of advanced renal cell carcinoma, but the safety profile and many measures of quality of life favored pazopanib, according to data from a recently published multicenter study.

Men who are diagnosed with azoospermia are more prone to developing cancer than the general population, according to a recent study.

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British researchers have developed a device that they say is able to read odors in urine to help diagnose patients with early signs of bladder cancer.

Harcharan Singh Gill, MD, presents the take home messages on penile, testis, and urethral cancer from the AUA annual meeting in San Diego.

Danil V. Makarov, MD, MHS, presents the take home messages on outcomes analysis.

Edmund Chiong, MD, presents the take home messages on bladder cancer from the AUA annual meeting in San Diego.

Andrew Wagner, MD, presents the take home messages on kidney cancer from the AUA annual meeting in San Diego.

AVEO Oncology recently announced that it has received a complete response letter from the FDA informing the company that the FDA will not approve in its present form the new drug application for AVEO’s investigational agent tivozanib for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.

Physicians and patients alike may not be aware of the benefits of nephron-sparing surgical methods, according to a recent study.

More intense surveillance and treatment in the first 2 years after a bladder cancer diagnosis could reduce the number of patients whose cancer recurs and lower the death rate from this disease, according to researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Researchers at UCLA’s Institute of Urologic Oncology and department of urology have classified kidney cancer into several unique subtypes, a finding that could help physicians tailor treatment to individual patients.

Researchers at UCLA’s Institute of Urologic Oncology and department of urology have classified kidney cancer into several unique subtypes, a finding that could help physicians tailor treatment to individual patients.

A recently published population-based study reinforces prior evidence from retrospective studies of the increased survival benefit of partial nephrectomy over radical nephrectomy, and suggests a cancer-specific survival benefit for nephron-sparing approaches as well.