Trip To Teherán

From Istanbul I flew to Teheran with Dr. Shahin Tabatabaei. He was born in Irán, but lives and works in Boston, at the Massachussets General Hospital, University of Harvard.

Shahin, Gordon Muir and myself share the same concern. The treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia worldwide is very heterogeneous, and today patients are treated with modern techniques in some places, but with very old techniques in other places, that entail much more risk for the patient. For quite a long time we have shared the same protocols for the diagnosis and management of prostatic patients in our centers, and we have enjoyed a very low rate of complications. We think that this level of excellence should be reached everywhere worldwide, and we have decided to promote an initiative to offer help to those hospitals of the world interested in developing state of the art prostate centers.

In this photo with two Iranian Urologists. Dr. Marzbani was a pioneer in Iran with laser surgery. I met him when he came to visit me in Madrid some time ago.

I had a great time and I enjoyed the overwhelming hospitality of Shahin and his family. Teherán is a beautiful and modern city with 15 million inhabitants and is packed with nice people. The hospitals are wonderful and it seems there is a lot of interest in establishing a collaboration to promote state of the art prostate centers.

Creation of the International Prostate Research Group

In this occasion I travelled to Istanbul in Turkey to participate in a surgical session with various colleagues and friends. All of them recognized experts in the surgical treatment of BPH. The reason for this meeting was double, we founded the International Prostate Research Group and also we kicked off the first prospective study of this group. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner by the Bosphorus and then we had a joint surgical session that was very interesting.

An important trip, but very short. I have acquired the compromise to develop the group's website and an online utility so we can all input the data obtained from the results of our patients, so we can finally publish our global experience.

In the photo, with some of the members of the group (not all members could make it to the meeting): Dr. Shahin Tabatabei from Massachussets General Hospital, Harvard, Boston, Dr. Benjamin Choi, Cornell University Nueva York, Mr. Gordon Muir, King's College London and Dr. Edward "Chip" Collins, from San Francisco, USA).

A very interesting initiative, because after some years of friendship and international collaboration, now we compose a very dynamic group, able to perform international studies on surgical techniques and drugs used for the treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia, with a modern and sophisticated organization. For me it is also a great opportunity to relate to international opinion leaders and to share knowledge and experiences...

Publication of my video in TTMED UROLOGY

One of my videos has been published in the prestigious urological website Ttmed Urology. They have more than 14.000 registered urologists worldwide!! I hope it will serve to promote the greenlight HPS enucleation technique that I have developed recently.

The link to this website is www.ttmed.com/urology

National Meeting for Stones, Endourology and Laparoscopy

On January 28th I flew to Santiago de Compostela in the north of Spain to participate in the National Meeting for Stones, Endourology and Laparoscopy, where I had to participate in a round table on applications of different types of lasers in urological diseases. We spoke of the different kinds of lasers used in urology and we had a lively debate on their advantages and disadvantages... I also took the opportunity to present the new technique of prostate enucleation with the greenlight HPS laser that I have recently developed. (I recently learned that my submission to present it at the European Urology Congress has been accepted). I returned to Madrid the same day, as I had to leave to a meeting in Istanbul.