Training at the Hospital de Torrejón, in Madrid

Today I drove to the brand new Hospital de Torrejón to help my friends urologists at the hospital to perform their first cases of HoLEP (Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate). It is a very difficult to learn technique for the surgeon, and I helped them through the operations. My nurse Vanesa came with me to instruct the local nurses in the subtleties of the instrumentation of this technique.

We did two cases that went very well. Dr. Luis Llanes is the head of the department of Urology at this hospital and my colleage as well at Clinica CEMTRO. I liked the Hospital very much and I enjoyed being with my friends sharing my passion for laser surgery of the prostate!

Invitation to the World Congress of Videourology in Casablanca

I have received an invitation to participate in the World Congress of Videourology that will take place in Casablanca in April, to participate in a session on the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Visitors from Israel

Today we had 3 laser surgeries scheduled, and we had 3 visitors from Israel who wanted to witness the procedures!

Surgeries in Bologna, Italy

This time I flew to Milano, where I slept, and then I woke up early to take a train to Bologna, to visit the Ospedale Santa Ursula Malpighi, chaired by Prof. Giuseppe Martorana. It is the second biggest hospital in Italy and I was impressed to know that the department of urology had 73 beds!

There they had prepared a surgical session with 5 patients, we did 4 vaporizations and one GreenLEP (GreenLight Enucleation of the prostate) in a record time. We worked in two operating rooms simultaneously, and as I was finishing one operation they were preparing the next patient, so I worked non stop all morning. Quite an experience, and all cases went really well.

This way the urology department could ascertain the versatility of the GreenLight Laser for the treatment of BPH, with the different variants, vaporization, vapo-enucleation and enucleation followed by morcellation.

Then I gave a brief talk to the residents of the department on this laser. Dr. Martorana invited me to participate in a congress with live surgery in his department later this year.

I went to have some delicious pasta and then I returned by train to Milano to take the flight to Madrid. A great experience!

Two days of surgeries in Rome

This time I went to Rome to perform a surgical demonstration with the GreenLight XPS laser at the
Policlínico Universitario Tor Vergata, the urology department is chaired by Prof. Vespasiani. Dr. Roberto Miano accompanied me, he has a lot of interest in becoming a GreenLight surgeon.

I performed three cases in three patients with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. An anatomic vaporization, a vapo-enucleation (enucleating the middle lobe) and an En-bloc GreenLight enucleation of the prostate (GreenLEP), in which we used a morcellator to extract the tissue for histological analisys.

The session generated a lot of interest and there were many urologists and residents watching. Two days later Dr. Miano informed me that patients had fared very well.

I slept in Rome and the following morning I went to Hospital Villa Claudia to perform another surgical demonstration to Dr. Roberto Giulanelli, and we had also the visit of Dr. Tonino Lagana. I did two operations on two patients with BPH who had recurred after a previous TURP (Transurethral resection of the prostate). One anatomic vaporization case and one vapo-enucleation that went very well.

It is always a pleasure to go to Italy. After finishing the session I returned to Madrid to try and rest a little during the weekend. Due to my trip to Bulgaria the previous week, this has been a 15 day non stop working week...

Starting the year in Bulgaria

My first trip of 2013 has been to Sofia, to participate in another surgical session in which we performed 15 GreenLEP procedures (GreenLight Laser Enucleation of the prostate) in four days. I was happy to hear that all patients from the previous session were doing well.

Several patients had advanced BPH (Benign prostatic hyperplasia) with big prostates and bladder stones. In such cases we first pulverize the stone with Holmium laser and then we perform the GreenLight Enucleation procedure.

The new Vmax blades for the Piranha morcellator have changed our lives, morcellation time has been reduced to more than half, now procedures are much faster.

It started snowing and everything turned white... winter is tough in Bulgaria.

GreenLight XPS multicentric study accepted for the AUA Annual Congress

Today I got the news that the abstract we sent to the AUA (American Urological Association) Annual Congress for this year has been accepted. It is another paper from the IGLU (International GreenLight Laser Users Group) that includes our experience with the GreenLight XPS 180 watt laser from the year 2010 at the Instituto de Cirugía Urológica Avanzada, in Madrid.