AACU advocacy conference dissects urology's particular priorities
October 1st 2012Participants in the American Association of Clinical Urologists' recent 5th Annual State Society Network Advocacy Conference took home valuable tools to improve their advocacy efforts and influence policymakers in their home state.
Neoadjuvant combo efficacious in high-risk prostate cancer
October 1st 2012One-third of men with high-risk prostate cancer achieved pathologic complete response (pCR) or near-complete response to 6 months of preoperative therapy with abiraterone acetate (ZYTIGA), leuprolide, and prednisone, investigators reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.
Pulsed tibial nerve stimulation promising for overactive bladder
October 1st 2012External application of pulsed electromagnetic fields using an investigational device (TranStim Transdermal Neuromodulation System, EMKinetics, Inc., Mountain View, CA) produces the same stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve as traditional electrical stimulation, results from a proof-of-concept study demonstrate.
Ongoing botulinum injections' efficacy in question
October 1st 2012The treatment benefit of intradetrusor onabotulinumtoxinA (Botox) for urinary incontinence due to neurogenic detrusor overactivity may decline after patients have received multiple repeat injections, findings from a study by Taiwanese urologists suggest.
Election outcome aside, here's how urologists can prepare
October 1st 2012With the presidential election looming, we thought it would be appropriate to look at the visions for health care reform put forth by the two presidential candidates, with an eye toward what a urology practice should do today to prepare for the future.
Economic burden of kidney cancer eased by robotics
October 1st 2012Adoption of robotic surgery for treatment of kidney cancer has led to a modest increase in the annual volume of partial nephrectomies but a substantial cost savings for care of chronic kidney disease, an economic analysis of a 6-year period suggests.
Responders to renal cell carcinoma agent show longer survival rates
October 1st 2012Responders to the multi-targeted receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor sunitinib (Sutent) have significantly longer progression-free survival and overall survival than non-responders, according to an analysis of 1,059 patients who participated in six clinical trials of sunitinib as first- or second-line therapy of metastatic renal cell carcinoma.
Accountable care organizations are here to stay; the time for urologists to prepare is now
October 1st 2012While it is still far from clear how specialists will adapt to the accountable care organization, and it seems likely that+M51 ACOs will take different shapes and forms, a sense of inevitability has settled in and urologists need to prepare themselves for change.
Nerve stimulation 'good option' in refractory voiding dysfunction
October 1st 2012An implantable neurostimulator (InterStim, Medtronic, Minneapolis) improves voiding outcomes in patients with voiding dysfunction that is refractory to other therapies, a retrospective long-term follow-up of patients at a single center showed.