Northwestern Medicine

"I would say the fact that we performed 754 HoLEP procedures in 2024 is a reflection of the efficiency and the high quality of care that you receive at Northwestern," says Amy E. Krambeck, MD.

As the year comes to a close, we revisit some of this year’s top content on prostate cancer.

"We found that almost half of them had suspicious findings as defined by the radiologist, but also that the positivity rate for PSAs below 0.5 were around 35%," says Eric Li, MD.

"I think it's really important when we're prescribing any medication to our patients to really have a good idea of what they can expect," says Evan Panken, MD.

"I think that using this database does allow for some generalizability, and we're pretty confident in that," says Evan Panken, MD.

"We found an increased association with AKI or acute kidney injury in the group receiving testosterone replacement therapy," said Evan Panken, MD.

In this episode, Robert E. Brannigan, MD, and Juan J. Andino, MD, MBA, discuss the recent amendment to the AUA/ASRM guideline on male infertility.

No patients in the transperineal cohort experienced an infection, compared with 1.6% of patients in the transrectal cohort.

"I just want to underscore how important and how incredible it was to participate in this, because there was a lot of dialogue among the faculty and also the course participants," says Ziho Lee, MD.

"Based on our work, it does show that ileal ureter replacement can be an effective long-term option for patients with long-segment ureteral stricture disease," says Ziho Lee, MD.

“The other thing that I think would be interesting is there's the thought of vasectomy regret where because of the permanent nature, what proportion of patients have regret surrounding their decision?” says Catherine S. Nam, MD.

“Within our department at University of Michigan, there has been increased numbers of vasectomy procedure days to be able to meet the demand so that there's not a very long prolonged delay for our patients,” says Catherine S. Nam, MD.

“It will be interesting to see how this plays out long-term in the changing political scheme, as well as the general trend of the current generation potentially having different thoughts in terms of wanting to have children or not in the future,” says Catherine S. Nam, MD.

“This is a great opportunity for public outreach and re-education on the common misconceptions surrounding vasectomy,” says Catherine S. Nam, MD.

"Compared to the prior years, we found that there was a 150% increase in new vasectomy consults that were completed, and there was a 160% increase in the number of vasectomies that were done," says Catherine S. Nam, MD.

"We aim to provide the best quality care we can at the locations closest to our patients," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"In 2015, we had 3 employed urologists in our health network. Now, we have 19 employed urologists in our health network," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"We have a nice organizational framework for us to really provide effective care that really feels the same throughout the different regions," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"[The care plan] incorporates patient-specific data to reinforce dietary management, fluid intake, and medication adherence based on the patient's 24-hour urine collection results," says Jenny Guo, MD.

"I would say the take-home message is that usage of this mobile health platform could potentially improve patient quality of life and compliance with recommendations," says Jenny Guo, MD.

"We found that the GetWell patients have shown increases in their Wisconsin Stone Quality of Life scores, or the WISQOL score, of about 3 points from baseline to 6 months," says Jenny Guo, MD.

"[The care plan] incorporates patient-specific data to reinforce dietary management, fluid intake, and medication adherence based on the patient's 24-hour urine collection results," says Jenny Guo, MD.

"BCG worked well enough that we could give it to patients and it worked pretty well. But having the shortage, I think, has ultimately led to a bottleneck and then an explosion in the technology and the resources and the techniques to treat patients with non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer," says Joshua J. Meeks, MD, PhD.

Hiten D. Patel, MD, highlights the background and trial design for the study, “A Prospective Diagnostic Cohort Study to Compare the Accuracy of Renal Mass Biopsy, PEER, and 99mTc-sestamibi SPECT/CT for Patients with Clinically Localized Renal Tumors (BIOPSy)."

"At Northwestern Medicine, we have very extensive and very deep experience with PET-PSMA-based imaging," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"Like any test, it's really a very powerful tool. It's just how you deploy the tool," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"PSMA PET imaging is used in the initial diagnostic staging and then in subsequent cases where there can be a recurrence after primary treatment.," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"PSMA-PET is a radio nucleotide-based imaging modality that really has changed the landscape of how we initially stage and subsequently follow individuals who have a diagnosis of prostate cancer," says Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD.

"We looked at people who were in the intermediate-risk zone, and we found that our calculator did do a better job of helping some of those men avoid unnecessary biopsies," says Adam B. Murphy, MD, MBA, MSCI.