Cirugías con el Dr. Gastón

Today we had another surgical session with Dr. Gaston at the
Clínica CEMTRO in Madrid.

He is an exceptional laparoscopist and his anatomical knowledge of the prostate and his surgical resources are unparalleled. Helping him operate is a true privilege. I had a great time operating with him and with Dr. Estefanía Romero. The surgeries were a true surgical masterclass.

He has also mentioned his intention to invite me to participate in a GreenLight laser training workshop he wants to organize in Bordeaux. It will be an enormous pleasure to collaborate with him in whatever he needs.

Surgeries in Bulgaria

I spent this weekend in Sofia, Bulgaria, where I did a surgical marathon of laser prostatectomies at the Hill Clinic. It was very cold, and Sofia was covered with snow. This was the view from the doctors resting room at the clinic.

All surgeries went very well. The GreenLEP technique detaches the adenoma from the capsule in one piece and we push it into the bladder and later we aspirate it out with a special device called morcellator. This technique has progressively evolved and is now very structured and reproducible. I am thinking this is the moment to start working on a video that describes the steps of this wonderful technique so I can publish it here.

Surgeries in Treviso, Italy

On thursday I left early in the morning to Italy, to perform a surgical demonstration with the GreenLight XPS 180 watt at the Civil Hospital of Treviso. There I was with Prof. Maccatrozzo, Dr. Merlo and Dr. Paolo Guaitoli, who came all the way from Udine to watch the surgeries (the last two doctors in the photo below).

I had a first patient with a monster prostate with a huge median lobe and I had to perform a hybrid technique. At first I could not enter the bladder with the laser cystoscope due to the humungous median lobe. I vaporized the lateral lobes using 600.000 joules and then I found the capsular plane on top of the veru montanum to progressively enucleate the median lobe until it was hanging from a small pedicle at the bladder neck. Then I used a bipolar resectoscope to resect the median lobe, in a totally bloodless fashion, and when we weighted the prostate chips, 70 grams! We checked with intraoperative transrectal ultrasound that we had removed the whole adenoma... a difficult case, but we managed it safely. The second patient had a smaller prostate and we did a good job too. I really enjoyed the session.

Then I went to the airport, where I had to wait to leave to Sofia, Bulgaria, because the airport had been closed due to heavy snowing. Finally I got there at 2 am...

Italian visitors

Today we had a surgical session with three operations with the GreenLight XPS laser for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). We received the visit from four italian urologists interested in this type of laser. The operations went very well and we had a chance to talk in depth about the basic science and the different properties of various wavelengths.

New book chapter: PELVIC PAIN

Soon the new book "Pelvic Pain", edited by Mary Montenegro, will be available. We have contributed with a chapter on myofascial syndrome in patients with chronic pelvic pain.

The book can be found here.

Conference in Edinburg, Scotland

This thursday night I flew to Edinburgh to participate in the Celtic Urology Network Meeting, that brought together urologists from Scotland, Wales and Ireland, in an update session on the treatment of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH).

I really liked to reach Edinburgh, a wonderful city. That night I had dinner with my friend Dr. Andy Thomas, and I got ready in the morning for my talk later that day.

I could only take this photo of the attendees. I spoke about the anatomic photoselective vaporization of the prostate as well as the GreenLEP (GreenLight Enucleation of the Prostate). I had a great time.

Then I returned to Madrid to spend the weekend, I could not enjoy Edinburgh enough, but I really look forward to coming back some day.

Visitor from Dubai

Today we received the visit of Dr. Ismail Abbara, from Dubai, who came to visit us and witness some surgical procedures with the GreenLight laser for the treatment of BPH, at our operating room at Clínica CEMTRO in Madrid.

I performed two anatomic vaporizations and a GreenLEP procedure (GreenLight Enucleation of the prostate) that went very well. Then we could enjoy dinner together, very nice. He said he wanted to invite me to perform a live surgery in a congress in Dubai in the next future.