Multinational visitors...

This thursday and friday I received the visit of three prestigious urologists from different countries. We were honoured by the visit of a urologist from Jedda, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, and Belgium.

We enjoyed both surgical sessions and also very interesting conversations. We also had time to eat the spanish way...

3rd International Course: Urology in the 21st Century, Sevilla

This morning I took the High Speed Train to Sevilla to participate in the III Curso Internacional: Urología del Siglo XXI - Medicina Basada en la Evidencia Científica, organised by the Hospital Universitario de Valme and the Department of Urology of the Cooper Hospital from New Jersey, USA.

My task was to participate in a round table on "New Technologies vs TURP", moderated by Dr. Pilar Laguna and with the participation of Dr. Jiménez Cruz (defending Holmium), Dr. Vicente (defending TURP), other alternatives (Dr. Pilar Laguna) and Simple laparoscopic prostatectomy (Dr. Octavio Castillo, from Chile - in the photo below, Dr. Vicente's face and Dr. Castillo delivering his presentation).

We had 10 minutes for individual talks and then we had a hot and fun discussion on the differences among techniques. I defended that no technique is perfect, but that probably Greenlight HPS laser prostatectomy offers the best balance between positive aspects and negative aspects among any existing technique.

A very well organised course... with massive attendance.

Visitor from Barcelona

Today I celebrated my 40th birthday with a full day surgical list... We received the visit of Dr. Pilar Luque, from the Hospital Clinic from Barcelona, who has recently started to use the Greenlight HPS laser for the treatment of BPH. I had three patients in the list, but she could only see one case of a man with a big prostate. We had time enough to discuss all surgical tricks and tips. It is possible that I will go to give her a hand to Barcelona soon.

Weekend in Amsterdam

I spent this weekend in Amsterdam, in the company of my colleagues and friends, Alex Bachmann, Jean de la Rosette and Oliver Reich. The goal of this meeting was to prepare a symposium on Greenlight Laser Prostatectomy that will be celebrated during the Annual Congress of the European Asociation of Urology. It promises to be a symposium charged with news and innovations... Luckily, apart from work, we had the chance to had dinner in a fabulous Japanese restaurant... this is the only photo from this trip, so I post it here....

Visitors from Vigo

Today we had the pleasure to receive the visit from two prestigious urologists from Vigo, who will start soon with their first cases with the Greenlight HPS high power laser. I operated a patient in their presence, and we had a chance to review in detail all the subtleties of the surgical technique... It seems that they want me to help them in Vigo with their first cases.... we had a great time together and we even had time to enjoy a great lunch...

Surgeries in Pamplona

I flew to Pamplona, where I spent the night because we started to operate early the next morning. I had been invited to perform three operations in the State Hospital Virgen del Camino. Once again we did three cases of endoscopic prostatectomy with the Greenlight HPS laser. It was a nice morning and we all had fun. All patients fared very well, as I was told later that week. I then returned to Madrid.

Conference to worldwide Greenlight distributors...

AMS, American Medical Systems, the manufacturer of the Greenlight HPS laser, invited me to share my experience with this laser with their worldwide distributors. I was already in Barcelona and I prepared a talk discussing my vision on this surgical procedure for the treatment of BPH in front of representatives from many companies from all corners of the world. I explained my experience and my opinions and enjoyed the company of some of the distributors that already had invited me to visit them, from India, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, South Africa.... then I returned to Madrid....

World Congress on Controversies in Urology

On February 1st I participated in the First World Congress in Controversies in Urology (CURy), that was held in Barcelona, Spain. Here I had two commitments. One, to present the poster with the first results of the prospective multicentric study of the IGLU Group (International Greenlight Users), with the results of the Greenlight HPS 120 watt laser in patients in urinary retention, under anticoagulation, and with big prostates, that I copy below.



Another one, to participate in a debate where we addressed what was the best treatment for BPH. TURP (Transurethral resection of the prostate), the treatment with the Greenlight HPS laser or the Holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP). In this session I confronted Prof. Marberger (who defended TURP), and Prof. Montorsi, the current editor of European Urology (who defended HoLEP) It was an interesting and intense debate, where I think it was clear that TURP continues to have a considerable morbidity and even mortality, and that the technical difficulty of HoLEP limits seriously its clinical use, the learning curve is too long. The Greenlight laser emerges as a treatment option that is very advantageous for the patients, due to its high efficacy and minimum morbidity... There are 1600 greenlight laser units worldwide and more than 300.000 patients have been treated.

In this photo, speaking, sitting by Dr. Montorsi (Italy) and Dr. Marberger (Austria)...

In this photo, Dr. Lepor (USA) and Dr. Djavan (Austria), who moderated the session.