Surgery in Toledo

Yesterday I drove to Toledo, a city just one hour away from Madrid, to show the new 120 watt Greenlight HPS laser to two colleagues from Toledo. They already had performed 30 cases with the 80 watt laser and were interested in upgrading to the new system.

They scheduled a patient with a big prostate, they estimated to be bigger than 100 cc. I needed 90 minutes and I delivered 550.000 joules. It was a tricky case because the camera system was not very good and the image ketp on saturating with the high intensity of the light. We lowered the light source intensity and managed to see a little bit better. The operation was uneventful and my colleagues were happy to see such a big prostate treated in a reasonable surgical time and with a fantastic result.

After my weekend in San Sebastian with my family, my camera was full of photos and I could only take this shot of the color of the urine postoperatively.

I am now starting every procedure with the 120 watt setting, before I would start with 80 watts until a tunnel was made and I was certain that the fibre would not contact with the tissue. Fibres do not like direct contact with tissue, and if you do contact and pressure against the tissue, the reflection of the energy on to the fibre will crack it. Interestingly, the fibre tolerates very nicely to work in near contact. Although this fibre can be used 3 mm apart from the tissue, I have the impression that performance is even better when you work in near contact and with a very slow sweeping speed. I got these tips from Dr. Carson Wong, and I must say it seems to work OK!!!

Then I went back to Madrid, I will spend the Easter days at home with my family. Being at home is a real pleasure!!!