The Robotic Surgeon Blog

  • Partial nephrectomy for kidney cancer

    UroToday – Renal Artery Occlusion During Nephron-Sparing Surgery: Retrospective Review of 301 Cases The authors report on 301 patients who underwent nephron sparing surgery for a localized renal tumor. Of these, 181 patients had renal artery occlusion with cold ischemia, while the remaining 120 patients were managed with external compression alone to control hemorrhage. Mean…

  • Hormonal therapy with radiation for prostate cancer

    UroToday – Phase II Study of Neoadjuvant Androgen Deprivation Followed by External-Beam Radiotherapy With 9 Months of Androgen Deprivation for Intermediate- to High-Risk Localized Prostate Cancer Testosterone returned to normal in 69% of patients with a median time to recovery of 9 months. Testosterone returned to it baseline level after ADT in 37% with a…

  • Robotic Prostate Surgery- 1st quarter update

    The 1st quarter of 2007 was my busiest for da Vinci Prostatectomies (dvP) for prostate cancer (52 operations), as well as my busiest total robotic surgery 3 month period (60 operations). My dvP volume increased 63% from the previous year and 24% from the previous quarter, which was then a record. My total robotic surgery…

  • Results of a large cryosurgery trial

    UroToday – Outcomes of Cryotherapy for Prostate Cancer The mean follow-up was 20 months. A total of 4% of patients who were continent pre-procedure were incontinent after therapy. A total of 39% of patients reported being potent pre-treatment and all men were impotent immediately after cryotherapy. The probability for a man potent prior to treatment…

  • Prostate cancer surgery: Small prostates

    UroToday – EAU 2007 – Session on Open and Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy Tumors Interestingly, in prostate volumes less than 30gm, lap RP was associated with a PSM in 44%, while no such association existed for open RP. I have never thought of this before, but a quick look at my robotic data shows that 4…

  • Haptics update from John Hopkins

    Johns Hopkins Magazine Robotics, along with stem-cell research, will drive much of the innovation in medicine in the coming decades. Mohsen Mahvash Mohammady, an assistant research professor at the Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (ERC CISST) at Johns Hopkins, and a fixture in the haptics lab, says that collaboration is the…

  • Positive Margins in Laparoscopic prostatectomy

    UroToday – European Urology – Preoperative and Intraoperative Risk Factors for Side-Specific Positive Surgical Margins in Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy for Prostate Cancer Suspected ECE on endorectal coil MRI had neither protective effect nor increased risk for PSMs, which means that, whereas this variable may help with surgical planning, its capacity to decrease PSM rates remains…

  • Prostate Cancer: Prostate cancer can metastasize after surgery with even low PSAs rarely

    UroToday – Prostate Cancer Progression in the Presence of Undetectable or Low Serum Prostate-Specific Antigen Level Overall, 10 (22%) had undetectable serum PSA levels and 30 patients (65%) had PSA of less than 1ng/ml at the time of disease progression. Of the 25 men who had undergone radical prostatectomy, 7 were hormone na�ve at the…

  • Prostate Cancer Surgery: Open vs. Laparoscopic Prostatecomy Results

    UroToday – EAU 2007 ABST[750] – Radical Prostatectomy: A non-randomized Comparative Analysis of Outcomes between the Open and Laparoscopic Approach Conclusions: In our institution and during the study period, laparoscopic and retropubic radical prostatectomy provided comparable oncological efficacy, functional and morbidity outcomes. The laparoscopic approach was associated with lesser blood loss and transfusion rate and…