Marnique Basto

The social media revolution is changing the conference experience: analytics and trends from eight international meetings

To analyse the use of Twitter at urology conferences to enhance the social media conference experience.

Engaging responsibly with social media: the BJUI guidelines

*Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, University of Melbourne, †Epworth Prostate Centre, Epworth Healthcare Richmond, Melbourne, Australia, ‡New York University, New York, NY, ¶Division of Urologic Surgery and Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Womens Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, **Department of Urology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, §Guys Hospital, Kings College London, London, UK, and °Department of Urology, Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada

Patterns-of-care and health economic analysis of robot-assisted radical prostatectomy in the Australian public health system

To compare patterns of care and peri‐operative outcomes of robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) with other surgical approaches, and to create an economic model to assess the viability of RARP in the public case‐mix funding system.

Patients with medical risk factors for chronic kidney disease are at increased risk of renal impairment despite the use of nephron-sparing surgery

To determine whether patients with normal preoperative renal function, but who possess medical risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD), experience poorer renal function after partial nephrectomy (PN) for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) compared with those without risk factors.

Laparoscopic versus robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy: an Australian single-surgeon series

In Australia, robotic‐assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) has steadily replaced open and laparoscopic surgery in the management of localized prostate cancer. Given the increased cost of this technology, we aimed to compare the perioperative, pathological, oncological and functional outcomes as well as short‐term complications of laparoscopic and RARP.

Early urinary continence recovery after robot-assisted radical prostatectomy in older Australian men.

To compare the recovery of urinary continence (UC) after robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) in men aged ≥70 and <70 years at 1‐year follow‐up and to assess for preoperative predictors of UC recovery, as older, healthy men with localised prostate cancer are often denied curative surgical treatment on the grounds of worse UC recovery.

Proton Therapy Websites: Information Anarchy Creates Confusion

Comments Correspondence: John Withington, Department of Urology, Guy’s Hospital, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9RT, UK. e-mail: john.withington@gstt.nhs.uk Abbreviations: HES, Hospital Episode Statistics; PCNL, percutaneous nephrolithotomy; SCTS, Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons. Proton Therapy Websites: Information Anarchy Creates Confusion Marnique Basto, Matthew R. Cooperberg* and Declan G. Murphy Division of Cancer Surgery, University of Melbourne, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; and *Department of Urology, University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA, USA Introduction Proton beam therapy (PBT) is a form of external beam radiotherapy (RT) that has been in therapeutic use for almost half a century. The advantage over the more commonly used photon-based RT lies in its ability to deliver maximum tumour doses at the end of the beam range with minimal exit dose, thus reducing dose to adjacent healthy tissue [1]. Evidence is emerging for the superiority of PBT for certain paediatric cancers and those of the eye, spine and skull [2], but no evidence currently exists showing any clinical superiority for PBT over brachytherapy or intensity modulated RT (IMRT) for the treatment of localised prostate cancer. In response to recent public concern the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) released recommendations against the use of PBT ‘outside of a prospective clinical trial or registry’, stating ‘there is no clear evidence that proton beam therapy offers any clinical advantage’ [3]. The other consideration with respect to PBT clinical development is the extraordinary outlay for the facilities, each of which costs

Early experience and operative technique of robotic-assisted partial nephrectomy.

150–200 million (American dollars) to build. Despite this dearth of evidence and expenditure, many internet-based resources aimed at both patients and professionals claim the superiority of PBT over photon-based RT and other interventions. In the USA, the number of PBT facilities expanded from three to 13 between 2001 and 2013. The number of Medicare beneficiaries receiving PBT nearly doubled between 2006 and 2009 due to a 68% increase in use for ‘conditions of possible benefit’ mostly accounted for by prostate cancer [4]. Given the relatively rare incidence of paediatric, eye, skull and spinal cancers, PBT centres have come under scrutiny for possibly seeking a more ‘common cancer’ as a means of recouping the massive capital and running costs. USA Medicare reimbursements for PBT peaked at

Engaging responsibly with social media: The British Journal of Urology International (BJUI) guidelines

28 million in 2007, of which prostate cancer treatment accounted for 83.3% of this (

Unclassified sex cord-stromal tumour of the testis – how to diagnose the unclassified:

23.3 million), a mean total cost of