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Men between 65 and 80 years of age who receive treatment for early-stage, localized prostate cancer appear to live significantly longer than men who do not receive treatment, according to the authors of a retrospective study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia.

Urologist Andrew von Eschenbach, MD, has been confirmed by the Senate as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Congress has passed legislation to prevent a scheduled 5% cut in 2007 Medicare physician payments and instead will freeze payment rates for 1 year.

Michael Ernst Mitchell, MD, has joined the staff of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin as program director of urology.

A substantial, yet unrecognized age-dependent population-level decrease in testosterone in American men has been observed, potentially due to birth cohort differences or to health or environmental effects not captured in observed data, suggest researchers from the New England Research Institutes, Watertown, MA.

Surgical teams at Johns Hopkins have successfully completed the first five-way donor kidney swap among 10 individuals.

Patients who have undergone gastric bypass surgery for morbid obesity have increased risk factors for the formation of kidney stones, according to a study by Mayo Clinic researchers.

In men with varicoceles, spermatic vein embolization can significantly improve the chances for pregnancy, German researchers suggest.

Radical prostatectomy can be a reasonable option for select octogenarian patients, according to researchers from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.

Early research on the use of gene transfer to treat erectile dysfunction shows promising results and suggests the potential for using the technology to treat overactive bladder and other conditions, according to researchers from North Carolina and New York.

Cleveland-Intraprostatic injection of mepivacaine epinephrine through a specialized catheter reduces the need for analgesia, as well as treatment time and energy consumption in patients undergoing high-energy transurethral microwave thermotherapy (TUMT) for BPH, researchers reported here.

Device collects tissue during transurethral surgery

The victim does not have to be the person harassed, but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.

The male sling achieves continence by unilateral ventral urethral compression that does not require patient activation, allowing volitional and spontaneous voiding.

Chicago-Although chemotherapy reigns supreme as the most effective systemic therapy to treat advanced prostate cancer, it is being contested with the rapid emergence and development of novel agents that are showing great promise in targeting pathways of cancer without causing damage to normal cells. However, it doesn't appear that chemotherapy will be relegated to the history books any time soon. Even if targeted therapies prove to be all they promise they may be, chemotherapy may still be essential.

Chicago-Whether chemotherapy may benefit men with locally advanced prostate cancer is still not known, but it is hoped that clinical trials currently under way may provide some evidence on the potential role of adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy in this setting.

Chicago-For men diagnosed with early prostate cancer or localized disease, the roles of the urologist, surgical oncologist, and radiation oncologist have been fairly well defined. The role of medical oncologists in managing patients in the early stages of the disease is less clear.

Chicago-With the evolving definition of advanced prostate cancer that now includes a number of clinical states not previously defined, treatment has also evolved into a multimodal approach. This mandates close cooperation among urologists and medical and radiation oncologists to ensure optimal patient care, according to leading oncologists.

Chicago-One of the most difficult issues in the management of prostate cancer is identifying which men with indolent disease are at increased risk of progressing to more advanced disease. Reliance on traditional clinical prognostic factors, including PSA, has provided some guidance on treatment, but all too often, men with indolent disease are over-treated based on an incomplete knowledge of disease risk.

Cleveland-Although their data show otherwise, a group of researchers at the University of Rochester (NY) Medical Center have faith that using a cautery-free approach with Weck clips to preserve the neurovascular bundle during robot-assisted prostatectomy is a better choice than bipolar cautery.

Cleveland-Preoperative transrectal ultrasound biopsies are not always reliable tools for predicting positive surgical margins and tumor location in nerve-sparing robotic radical prostatectomies. However, this unreliability may be partly due to the biopsy results coming from outside labs and pathologists versus in-house evaluations.

Cleveland-Intraprostatic injection of mepivacaine epinephrine through a specialized catheter reduces the need for analgesia, as well as treatment time and energy consumption in patients undergoing high-energy transurethral microwave thermotherapy (TUMT) for BPH, researchers reported here.

Beginning in 1998, consensus conferences concerning the grading of urothelial cancer addressed removal of the word "carcinoma" from low-grade papillary tumors with little or no malignant potential. The subsequent change in terminology has been controversial, however, and many pathologists as well as most urologists continue to use the traditional three-grade classification system.

Cleveland-Which approach to radical nephrectomy produces the most durable outcomes in survival and restored renal function: laparoscopy or open surgery?

National Report-With another year of Medicare payment cuts looming in 2007, declining reimbursement is no surprise as the number one current concern among practicing urologists, according to an exclusive survey from Urology Times and its sister publication, Contemporary Urology. Changes in reimbursement are followed closely by malpractice, office overhead, pay for performance, and increasing regulations as the top five issues that urologists are extremely or very concerned about, the first State of the Specialty survey found.

Ankara, Turkey-Elevated PSA levels and the presence of urinary tract infection are the symptomatic parameters that are most predictive of acute urine retention in men with BPH, according to a group of Turkish researchers. Their data also suggest that plasmakinetic resection of the prostate may provide 1-year outcomes similar to those of open prostatectomy in BPH patients who do not have retention.

Cleveland-Understaging of renal tumors on the basis of clinical criteria appears problematic when tumors are morcellated during laparoscopic nephrectomy, according to a Mayo Clinic study presented at the 2006 World Congress of Endourology here.

We must increase the number of, and accrual to, clinical trials. The best way is in the setting of multidisciplinary clinics.