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Clinicians confronting acute urinary retention (AUR) would do well to not only resolve the retention, but to also look for and treat comorbid disease, which amplifies the risk of death in a disease state already associated with a high incidence of mortality.

They are signs of the times for today's practicing urologist: declining reimbursement, increasing overhead, an increasingly stringent regulatory environment, and rising malpractice premiums. Urologists ranked these issues as their most pressing concerns in the 2007 State of the Specialty survey, an exclusive study developed by the editors of Urology Times and Contemporary Urology.

Physicians who hesitate to prescribe testosterone replacement therapy for fear of promoting prostate cancer should re-examine the evidence.

In this interview, Anthony J. Schaeffer, MD, who serves as chair of the AUA Research Council and urology representative to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Advisory Council, discusses what the future holds for urology research.

Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological & Kidney Institute have taken laparoscopic surgery to the next level by performing a series of surgeries requiring only a single abdominal incision. Using a device newly listed by the FDA, Jihad H. Kaouk, MD, and colleagues say the single-port procedures leave little to no scarring and reduce postoperative complications.

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Medtronic, Inc. has initiated the InSite Trial, a post-market study of its sacral nerve stimulation therapy (InterStim) for the treatment of overactive bladder and urinary retention. The FDA has approved this efficacy study, which aims to enroll more than 450 patients. Those who qualify will be randomized to receive either InterStim therapy or standard medical treatment, including oral medications, as determined by their physician.

The FDA has accepted Indevus Pharmaceuticals’ new drug application for its long-acting depot preparation of testosterone undecanoate (Nebido) for the treatment of male hypogonadism. The NDA is predicated on data from six clinical studies in which more than 400 patients received at least one dose of the drug, more than 300 of whom were treated for more than 1 year.

The American College of Surgeons has named Jack W. McAninch, MD, as first vice president-elect. Separately, the ACS Board of Governors has elected Howard M. Snyder III, MD, as a regent.

Two tiny genetic variations may provide the best clues yet for finding more precise ways to estimate prostate cancer risk and improve screening and early detection for men of African descent, report researchers from the University of Chicago and the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, have shown that hysterectomy greatly increases the risk of urinary incontinence, and women who undergo the procedure are more than twice as likely to also undergo surgery for urinary incontinence (The Lancet 2007; 370:1494-9).

Patients with localized prostate cancer halve their risk of dying from the disease within 6 months of diagnosis when they undergo brachytherapy to treat their cancer rather than managing their disease through active surveillance, according to a study presented at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting in Los Angeles.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has increased hospital outpatient and ambulatory surgical center reimbursement rates for cryoablation treatments for prostate cancer, and has created a reimbursement code and rate for percutaneous renal cryoablation. The new rates will go into effect in 2008.

Under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ final physician fee schedule, physicians will face a 10.1% reduction in Medicare reimbursement next year unless Congress steps in to circumvent the cut. The fee schedule will take effect Jan. 1, 2008.

The authors of a study showing the potential value of ultrasound-guided stem cells as a standard treatment for stress urinary incontinence need to be commended on their results.

Members of Congress and their staffs can expect to hear more about prostate cancer and the need to support research initiatives, now that AUA has a new chief lobbyist on board.

Acton, MA- Allen Medical Systems Co.'s new Uro Catcher System adapts to any table and efficiently collects and contains urine during cystoscopies.

Given current Medicare policy, we do not recommend billing either 64450 or 64430 in conjunction with prostate biopsy.

Whether he or she practices in a community or an academic setting, every urologist is faced with the routine challenge of sifting through a myriad of scientific articles each month.

No matter which sling surgeons use to treat incontinence in obese women, results are similar-and good-with minimal complications.

A study from Loyola University Medical Center posed a simple question: "Can a surgeon rely on obstructive symptoms to detect urinary retention?" The study results offered an equally simple answer: No.

With a median 2 years of follow-up, anterior repair with porcine skin collagen mesh still looks better than plication alone, but not dramatically better, and the difference could lessen with longer-term follow-up.

Older women who are candidates for sling surgery to treat stress incontinence need more intensive counseling than younger patients do.

Linthicum, MD-California urologists were recently hit with a "RAC attack" that may foreshadow the reach of the soon-to-be-national Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) program and its impact on practicing urologists. The RAC program is particularly relevant to urologists across the country who administer prostate cancer drugs in their offices, national and state officials say.

Using stem cells to cure stress urinary incontinence has been tested against collagen bulking and in incontinence following prostate surgery, and has come up a winner.

Urology resident Lt. Cmdr. Richard Jadick, DO, was awarded a Bronze Star with a Combat V for valor for saving the lives of more than 90 critically wounded Marines, sailors, and Iraqi soldiers during operations in Fallujah.

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Dendreon Corp. has completed enrollment of more than 500 U.S. and Canadian patients in the phase III IMPACT (IMmunotherapy for Prostate AdenoCarcinoma Treatment) clinical trial of sipuleucel-T (Provenge) for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. The IMPACT study is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial designed to measure overall survival in men with metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer receiving sipuleucel-T versus placebo.

Leo Giambarresi, PhD, has joined the AUA Foundation as the director of research. Dr. Giambarresi is currently the prostate cancer research program manager at the Battelle Memorial Institute, U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, Fort Detrick, MD, where he leads a multidisciplinary team of government and contract scientists, clinicians, consumers, and support staff to execute all aspects of an $80 million appropriations budget for prostate cancer research.

Christopher Kane, MD, has been appointed the new chief of urology at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center and Moores UCSD Cancer Center.