The Robotic Surgeon Blog

  • Organ-confined disease more common in screen-detected prostate cancer

    Source: MedWire News Prostate cancers detected by screening have a higher rate of organ-confined disease and a lower rate of extracapsular extension and positive surgical margins than non-screen-detected cancers, say researchers. The widespread use of prostate cancer screening had led to stage migration, with more cancers detected at a lower stage, which has led to…

  • Kidney Cancer Cells Tricked Into Killing Themselves

    Source: NPR A researcher has found a potential therapy for patients with kidney cancer, which historically hasn’t responded well to other therapies, such as radiation and chemotherapy. Most cancerous kidney cells — also known as renal cells – have lost a gene called VHL, says Amato Giaccia, a cancer researcher at the Stanford University School…

  • Best of AUA Orlando 2008 for Prostate Cancer

    Source: Urology Times Robotic Surgery Presented by Ashutosh K. Tewari, MD, Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York. * Robot-assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy is associated with shorter hospital stay and less bleeding, but the warm ischemia time is still around 30 minutes. * Studies comparing robot-assisted laparoscopic cystectomy and open radical cystectomy show similar oncologic outcomes. At…

  • Surgeon and hospital volume linked to radical prostatectomy outcomes

    Source: MedWire News “Briefly, higher hospital and surgeon volumes are associated with a decreased risk of most in-hospital complications after RP,” the team concludes. They add: “These associations are statistically significant and likely to be clinically important, especially if doubling hospital or surgical volume can lead to an 8% to 9% decrease in the rate…

  • New for kidney cancer: robotic surgery

    Source: Washington University Website “Robotic surgery is more efficient and precise than either open or laparoscopic surgery for tumors confined to the kidney,” says Bhayani, assistant professor of surgery and a leader in the field of robotic surgery. “Rather than operate with two hands, I can simultaneously control four robotic instruments with mechanical “wrists” that…

  • Prostate Cancer-Specific Survival Following Salvage Radiotherapy vs Observation in Men With Biochemical Recurrence After Radical Prostatectomy: Abstract

    Source: JAMA Prostate Cancer-Specific Survival Following Salvage Radiotherapy vs Observation in Men With Biochemical Recurrence After Radical Prostatectomy Bruce J. Trock, PhD; Misop Han, MD; Stephen J. Freedland, MD; Elizabeth B. Humphreys, MS; Theodore L. DeWeese, MD; Alan W. Partin, MD, PhD; Patrick C. Walsh, MD JAMA. 2008;299(23):2760-2769. Context Biochemical disease recurrence after radical prostatectomy…

  • Prostate cancer tied to inactivity

    Source: UPI Men who work at desk jobs are more likely to develop prostate cancer than manual workers, a study indicates. Researchers found low levels of physical activity in the workplace can significantly raise the risk of cancer, the Daily Mail reported Saturday. The study determined men who worked as teachers or in office jobs…

  • Is Robotic Radical Cystectomy an Appropriate Treatment for Bladder Cancer? Short-Term Oncologic and Clinical Follow-Up in 50 Consecutive Patients

    Source: UroToday Robotic cystectomy was performed in 40 men and 10 women at a mean age of 63.6 years. Of the 50 patients, 66% had Stage pT2 or less, 14% had pT3 disease, and 20% Stage N+ disease. No patient had positive surgical margins. This abstract is from one of the leading centers for robotic…

  • UroToday – Percent Tumor Involvement and Risk of Biochemical Progression After Radical Prostatectomy

    From UroToday: We examined the association between percent tumor involvement in the radical prostatectomy specimen and the outcome measures of pathological stage and biochemical progression using multivariate logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards analysis, respectively, in 2,220 patients from the Duke Prostate Center radical prostatectomy database. This was a study that showed that if you…