LUGPA Annual Meeting

"In Arkansas, for example, we now have half the urologists that there were 25 years ago, and that's with an increasing population. That's a representation of what's going on across the country," says R. Jonathan Henderson, MD.

“It certainly seems that we're moving into medical management of advanced diseases,” says J. Christopher Webster, MD, FACS.

“From a patient care standpoint, anything that opens the door and makes the patient feel more secure and open is going to lead to better outcomes for them and allow us to serve their needs best,” says Benjamin Lowentritt, MD, FACS.

“New imaging has rapidly changed the advanced prostate cancer landscape, and all of the existing studies that we have are based on older imaging,” says Dr. Henderson.

"In a phase 2 clinical trial, we saw that erdafitinib had an objective response rate of around 40% in patients who received prior chemotherapy for their metastatic disease," says Dr. Siefker-Radtke.

“From just a regular business sense, we can’t raise prices to offset some of our supply cost problems,” says David Morris, MD.

"There's 3000 patient trials that are either done or going to be done within the next year or 2 in the BCG-naïve setting, and all of them have systemic therapy," says Joshua J. Meeks, MD, PhD.

"People are starting to retire, and there isn't that much production of urologists every year; there's about 270 that come out for the whole country," says Richard Harris, MD.

"We want to make sure that independent urology continues to thrive by recruiting new people to independent urology. That's what we're going to try and do," said Evan R. Goldfischer, MD.

"Specifically for our transgender and gender-diverse patients, there are still insurance issues and access issues in general," said Diana K. Bowen, MD.

For patients with mCRPC who experience disease progression on novel hormonal agents (NHAs) and androgen deprivation therapy, it is important to consider when the NHA was received and whether docetaxel has been administered, explains Evan Y. Yu, MD.

ADT intensification through doublet and triplet regimens has become standard for most patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, Alicia Morgans, MD, MPH, explained in a presentation at the 2022 LUGPA Annual Meeting.

"We have more younger members here at the annual meeting than we've ever had before. We want to make that a priority," says Evan R. Goldfischer, MD, MBA, FACS.

In an interview during the 2022 LUGPA Annual Meeting, Jason M. Hafron, MD, shared advice on optimizing advanced prostate cancer clinics, recapped the biggest advances in urologic cancer treatment in 2022, and discussed how Jelmyto treatment for UTUC has evolved over time.

"It really is a fun time to be doing urothelial cancer research, as we see patients living longer, with more durable responses, impacting their overall survival and long-term outcomes," says Arlene Siefker-Radtke, MD.

“Don't make assumptions about any patients,” says Diana K. Bowen, MD.

Webster also shares his advice for young urologists entering community practice.

"We're seeing that it's beneficial to the patient—it’s easier, they don't require a general anesthetic, and we don't have to bring him to the hospital," says Dr. Hafron.

“The bar is high; we want to be curing these patients, not just delaying a recurrence of their cancer,” says Arlene O. Siefker-Radtke, MD.

In an interview during the 2022 LUGPA Annual Meeting, Ashley Ross, MD, PhD, discussed angoing advances and unmet needs in prostate cancer.

"What we know for sure is [PSMA-PET is] just simply better imaging in terms of accuracy," says Ashley Ross, MD, PhD.

“We have to separate the need for germline testing and somatic testing,” explains Emmanuel S. Antonarakis, MD.

“What’s important is that we get these studies approved so that our patients aren’t suffering any further economic burdens by having this new type of imaging being put forward,” says David Albala, MD.

“There’s a lot of clinical utility to genetic testing, and there are familial implications and clinical trial implications,” explains Neal Shore, MD.

In this interview, Jason M. Hafron, MD, discusses the “buzz” surrounding the meeting and touches on clinical topics including germline and somatic testing, PARP inhibitors, and mitomycin-containing reverse thermal gel (Jelmyto).

“[Out] of everything going on, this is probably 1 of the most exciting areas in prostate cancer,” says Jason M. Hafron, MD.

"It depends on how you're paid and the structure of the compensation model," says Jennifer Miles-Thomas, MD, FPMRS.

“I think as our understanding of mutations [and] our understanding the PARP inhibitors [grows], if the data pans out, we'll be using these earlier and earlier in patients, which I think we'll [will allow us to] see probably more benefit,” says Jason M. Hafron, MD.

“The notion that we have to see a patient in front of us every time in order to have a billable encounter is antiquated,” says Gary Kirsh, MD.

Jennifer Miles-Thomas, MD, FPMRS, explains why urology practices need to have female urologists and approaches for recruiting them.