3rd World Congress on Controversies in Urology (CURY) - Athens Greece

This weekend I went to Athens with my daughters. We took the opportunity that I had to come to Athens to participate in the 3rd World Congress on Controversies in Urology (CURY), to spend some time together and enjoy some sightseeing. I had to participate in a symposium on GreenLight treatment of BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), with other international experts in this field.

The meeting was very successful, with high quality presentations from all the faculty members. I had a new chance to present the new GreenLEP (GreenLight Laser Enucleation of the Prostate) in the talk on how to treat big prostates.

Then I spoke on the differences of this laser with other lasers, and I gave my opinion on which is the reference treatment, the Gold Standard treatment for BPH. For me there is no doubt that laser treatment of BPH is nowadays the Gold Standard, and that TURP (transurethral resection of the prostate) and open prostatectomy have a much higher risk of complications.

This time I did have time for some tourism and we enjoyed a fantastic weather in Athens, that we were missing in Spain! 

More surgeries in Sofia, Bulgaria

This weekend I flew to Bulgaria, where we had scheduled 10 operations at the Hill Clinic in Sofia, with Dr. Kalchev. The weather was very nice. This is the view of the mountains from the hotel. I felt like going to ski, but we had to start the operations at 7 am...

This was the first time we did endoscopic GreenLEP (GreenLight laser enucleation of the prostate) followed by morcellation of the fragments, and they all went smoothly. The bulgarian press announced it because it is the first time this technique is ever performed in this country.

Some cases were extremely complex, high risk patients with huge prostates and big stones in the bladder that we had to fragment with a Holmium laser. I love anyway to perform these surgical sessions and operate these very difficult cases. I am happy to see that the GreenLEP technique I developed provides very good results and allows to treat huge prostates.

This was an extreme case, the prostate was bigger than 200 grams, as the patient had several big stones in the bladder, we decided to enucleate it with the laser and extract it through a minimal incision of the skin, with the stones. The patient went home the next morning!

Fast trip to Paris

This saturday I flew to Paris to participate in a filming session for an educational programme that will be published in Univadis, a famous international medical website. I had to explain the management of patients who consult for hematuria (blood in the urine) to general practitioners.

Then I flew back to Madrid, to get some rest..

Visitor from Germany

In this occasion I received the visit from Dr. Brunken. He was very interested to see how we do the Greenlight Laser Enucleation of the prostate. He came to the operating room where I performed two operations in two patients with 100 gram prostates.

This new technique that I have developed allows to extract the whole prostatic adenoma endoscopically. First it is detached from the prostatic capsule and it is thrown inside the bladder in two or three pieces, that are later extracted using a morcellator (I use the wonderful Piranha system, from Wolf). This allows to perform a complete adenomectomy (the risk of reoperation is extremely low, because there is no residual tissue that can regrow), to perform a histological analysis of the tissue (it is not vaporized), with minimal risk and without size limitation. I will present this technique at the European Urology Congress this year.