Urachal anomalies are rare with an incidence of 1:5000-8000 live births. There is still some controversy as to whether to treat them expectantly or surgically with published reports describing malignant changes in adulthood. These authors describe their retrospective series of...
This is an excellent review of ‘testicular’ torsion - which is said to occur in 1:4000 under 25-year-olds. Two age periods (adolescence and neonatal) are identified as having peak incidence. Acute torsion represents 27% of children with acute scrotum. The...
So far the transrectal ultrasound guided (TRUS) biopsy has been the ‘gold standard’ for diagnosing prostate cancer. However, it is invasive and can lead to complications, so there is a need for new non-invasive diagnostic tools to avoid unnecessary biopsy...
The treatment pathway for advanced prostate cancer is both puzzling and complex and varies from centre to centre in the UK. The National Prostate Cancer Audit Report 2019 for England and Wales shows that only a quarter of men with...
As an ST8 trainee in paediatric general surgery and urology, I had firmly decided on subspecialisation in paediatric urology. Whilst preparing for the dreaded final Annual Review of Competency Progression (ARCP), the all-important question of “What next?” came to the...
The widespread use of prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing has led to diagnostic difficulties for patients and urologists. The sensitivity and specificity characteristics of PSA are far from optimal. To try and improve the predictive accuracy of PSA measurements, nomograms...
Bladder and bowel dysfunction (BBD) is a spectrum of lower urinary tract symptoms and voiding dysfunction accompanied by functional constipation and / or encopresis and may represent up to 47% of paediatric urology consultations. The BBD cycle pattern begins when...
Bladder overactivity is a common problem affecting the social functioning of children. Overactive bladder dry (OAB-dry) is a term (one not utilised by the International Children’s Continence Society) and refers to patients who are experiencing frequency, urgency and nocturia symptoms...
The first article in this series defined frailty and introduced the concept and importance of identifying patients living with frailty who undergo surgery, including those undergoing urological procedures. In the second part of this series we outline how to identify...
Bladder cancer is a common urological malignancy, with around 610,000 new cases and 220,000 deaths worldwide in 2022. Approximately 75% of these cases are non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). The conventional method for treating NMIBC is standard resection (SR), performed transurethrally,...
Diseases that are rare or of low prevalence pose challenges to provision of high-quality care because of limited available knowledge and sparse good-quality evidence regarding uncommon presentations, mechanisms of disease, and optimal treatments. Approximately 80% of rare diseases are of...
US News & World Report (USNWR) provide rankings on a wide range of topics (education, health, money, travel, cars and law firms). In terms of healthcare, they suggest that their rankings (based on metrics) are a tool that can help...