Round table at the annual meeting of the Endourology Group of the Spanish Urological Association

I went to Bilbao to participate in the annual meeting of the Endourology Group of the Spanish Urological Association.

The round table was moderated by Dr. Rodriguez Antolín and I participated with Dr. Placer (Holmium laser) and Dr. Ruibal (laparoscopic adenomectomy), my role was to defend the role of GreenLEP (Green Laser Enucleation of the Prostate).

Con el Dr. Placer (centro) y Ruibal (derecha)

I briefly presented the development of the GreenLEP technique, how to learn it progressively, starting with anatomic vaporization and hybrid operations, and the results obtained in the last 5 years.

I tried to express my conviction that we have to abandon conventional open surgery and TURP once and for all, and that there is no sense in doing laparoscopic adenomectomy when we have safer and less invasive techniques as laser enucleation. All the departments of urology in the world should embrace laser prostatectomy, making whatever efforts are necessary to learn and to replicate the excellent results we can achieve with Green and Holmium lasers.

Visitors to our surgical room at Clínica CEMTRO

Today we received the visit of Dr. Francisco Bon and Dr. Alfredo Bohorquez from Hospital Dr. Peset, Dr. Narcis Camps, from the Hospital de Bellvitge, Dr. Virgilio Vaz, from Portugal, and Dr. Ramón Abascal from the Hospital General de Asturias.

We performed at Clínica CEMTRO a surgical session with 4 patients. I could demonstrate the different existing techniques for the treatment of BPH, anatomic vaporization, vapo-enucleation and the "en bloc" enucleation with the GreenLight laser.

Everything went very well, it is always a pleasure to receive the visit of other colleagues and to share with them!

GreenLEP tutorship in Portugal

Again I flew to Porto to reach Coimbra with Dr. Antonio Oliveira, who is determined to learn the En bloc GreenLEP (GreenLight Enucleation of the Prostate) technique.

We went to the Hospital Idealmed to perform three operations. All patients had prostates over 100 cc.

I was very happy to see the fast progress that Dr. Antonio Oliveira had, he is now independent in the performance of this operation. I helped surpass some minor difficulties in two of the cases, but he was able to complete one on his own.

I am very proud to see that this technique that took me five years to develop is now reasonably easy to teach and learn and I liked the interest and determination of Dr. Oliveira to learn properly.

The following day we went to another hospital, the Hospital at Oia, to do another case. Dr. Oliveira completed it perfectly well!

Then I returned to Madrid to rest for the weekend. I was happy thinking that this technique is going to help a lot of patients.

Surgical session at Ospedale de Guastalla, Italy

Again I travelled to Italy. I went to Milan and slept there, and then drove to the Ospedale di Guastalla, near Parma. In this occasion I had to help Dr. Frattini with his learning curve of anatomic vaporization of the prostate. This technique I developed is becoming the standard technique for Green Laser vaporization in Italy.

Two of the patients had very large glands, over 120 cc, and I performed an En Bloc enucleation of the prostate with the Green Laser. Both went very well. Al the urology staff was there for the session. Then I endured two more hours in the car back to Milan to take a late return flight to Madrid. These sessions are nice and gratifying but it is a hard job!