In case you missed it, or you've already abandoned Twitter (memo to self - must do that ourselves!), we witnessed some pretty toxic stuff over there in the past couple of weeks. Vile personal attacks, calls for resignations, accusations of nefarious behaviour etc etc, mostly triggered by an AI-generated infographic attempting to illustarte a recent paper in European Urology Oncology. 
We chat with first author Dr Riccardo Bertolo (University of Verona, ITA), about his first-hand experience of twitter toxicity, his take on that terrible infographic, and ,most importantly, we discuss the paper which he and his colleagues published on late GU toxicity following prostate cancer radiation. 

Your usual hosts are Renu Eapen and Declan Murphy, back with a bang after their summer break. 

Even better on our YouTube channel 

Links:
Bertolo et al paper in European Urology Oncology 2026
Letter from the European Urology Editors
Previous GU Cast on Radiation Cystitis 

Happy New Year and welcome to Episode 5 of our monthly GU Cast Journal Club! Today we focus on two classic papers in non-invasive bladder cancer and metastatic prostate cancer. The Lamm RCT of maintenance BCG is a landmark trial for all sorts of reasons, published in J Urol in 2000. And the CHAARTED paper of chemohormonal therapy is the landmark trial of combination therapy in mHSPC, published in NEJM in 2015.

We are delighted to welcome back our GU Cast Journal Club Editors, Dr Carlos Delgado (Melbourne, AUS), and Dr Elena Berg (Munich, GER), along with main GU Cast Hosts, Renu Eapen and Declan Murphy. A very lively discussion!!

Links to papers below:
1. Maintenance bacillus Calmette-Guerin immunotherapy for recurrent TA, T1 and carcinoma in situ transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder: a randomized Southwest Oncology Group Study J Urol 2000

2. Chemohormonal Therapy in Metastatic Hormone-Sensitive Prostate Cancer
NEJM 2015

GU Cast Journal Club is supported by our Partner, MSD, through an unrestricted educational grant.

Even better on our YouTube channel

About GU Cast Journal Club:
Each month, two papers are discussed, each of which are of importance to the GU Oncology community. These may be recent papers, or occasionally we will chose a classic landmark paper in GU Oncology
. The objective is to draw attention to important papers in GU Oncology, and critique these in a robust manner
. The key target audience is trainees working in Urology, Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Nuclear Medicine, and diagnostic specialties such as Radiology and Pathology. But any of our regular audience are likely to enjoy this Journal Club series.

Another of our special Themed Podcasts focussed on prostate cancer in China, supported by our Gold Partner, Bayer. We are joined as ever by our China Editor, Dr Yao Zhu (Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Centre), and also special guest Dr Yige Bao (SCU Xiamen Hospital). Not only do we learn about pandas in West China, but also some great highlights from the recent ESMO Annual Meeting in Berlin! Hosted as ever by Dr Renu Eapen and Prof Declan Murphy

Even better on our YouTube channel 

Episode 4 of our monthly GU Cast Journal Club and today we focus on two important papers in prostate cancer diagnostics and bladder cancer surgery. The PRECISION NEJM paper 2018 is a landmark publication which defined the role of mpMRI in early detection, and changed practice in many countries. The EB-StaR trial should also change practice after its European Urology 2024 publication, but has it??!

We are delighted to welcome back our GU Cast Journal Club Editors, Dr Carlos Delgado (Melbourne, AUS), and Dr Elena Berg (Munich, GER), along with main GU Cast Hosts, Renu Eapen and Declan Murphy. A very lively discussion!!

Links to papers below:
1. MRI-Targeted or Standard Biopsy for Prostate-Cancer Diagnosis NEJM 2018

2. Transurethral En Bloc Resection Versus Standard Resection of Bladder Tumour: A Randomised, Multicentre, Phase 3 Trial Eur Urol 2024

GU Cast Journal Club is supported by our Partner, MSD, through an unrestricted educational grant.

Even better on our YouTube channel

About GU Cast Journal Club:
Each month, two papers are discussed, each of which are of importance to the GU Oncology community. These may be recent papers, or occasionally we will chose a classic landmark paper in GU Oncology
. The objective is to draw attention to important papers in GU Oncology, and critique these in a robust manner
. The key target audience is trainees working in Urology, Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Nuclear Medicine, and diagnostic specialties such as Radiology and Pathology. But any of our regular audience are likely to enjoy this Journal Club series.

An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the world-famous ORSI Academy in Belgium! Declan and Renu travelled to this remarkable facility just outside Ghent in Belgium, jammed full of tens of millions of dollars worth of robotic surgery technology from the world's top providers - Intuitive Surgical, Medtronic, Microport and more. Every day, surgeons from all around the world are getting hands-on experience using the latest robotic surgery technology in an array of training environments. Plus ORSI Academy hosts many academic programs, live surgery events, telesurgery demonstrations, and is actually expanding to do even more! 
We get a superb tour of the building hosted by Urologist, Dr Ruben de Groote, who also tells us about Surgquest, the digital arm of ORSI Academy, which hosts an incredible library of surgical education videos, and we also chat with ORSI Academy founder and CEO, Dr Alex Mottrie, world-renowned urologist and pioneer of robotic surgery. Plus we hear first hand from senior Urology Fellows, Dr Edoardo Beatrici, and Dr Mario de Angelis, about how the ORSI Academy proficiency-based progression training works in practice. 

This one much better enjoyed on our YouTube channel!

Links:
ORSI Academy
Surgquest 

World-renowned sexual health expert, Dr Chris Nelson, Chief of Psychology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, joins us in studio to run through the new Movember-supported "Guidelines for Sexual Health Care for Prostate Cancer Patients". A really helpful overview and structure for anyone working in this field, and for patients and their loved ones. Chris shares his 20-plus years of experience working in this field at one of the world's premier prostate cancer centres.

Even better on our YouTube channel 

Links:
Movember Sexual Health Guidelines

We recently hosted another live webinar for our Gold Partners, Mundipharma,  this time asking the question, "Is high-risk BCR actually metastatic prostate cancer??". It's a reasonable question! This podcast was anchored from the GU Cast studio in Melbourne by usual hosts, Renu Eapen and Declan Murphy, joined in person by Andrew Loblaw, radiation oncologist from Toronto, and online by medical oncologist Jeff Goh in Brisbane.

Best enjoyed on our YouTube channel if you want to check out the slides. 

Runsheet:

• Is high-risk biochemical recurrence already metastatic prostate cancer?Declan Murphy
• Is the management of high-risk BCR and mHSPC now the same? Jeffrey Goh
• Prostate radiotherapy is the real triplet therapy; plus when should we use SBRT? Andrew Loblaw

Q&A and case discussions

This webinar was organised by our Gold Partners, Mundipharma, who also support GU Cast as Gold Partners through an unrestricted educational grant.

Dr Amar Kishan (Radiation Oncologist, UCLA, USA), made lots of headlines recently when he presented data from the phase II randomised LUNAR trial of SABR +/- LuPSMA in patients with oligometastatic prostate cancer. So we were very happy when he turned up in Melbourne recently and popped into the GU Cast studio for a chat. We discuss metastasis-directed therapy and bring up our favourite Pokemet analogies, and ask should we not just be offering these patients and ADT/ARPI doublet?! 

Regular hosts Declan Murphy and Renu Eapen, also joined by Prof Wee Ong, Radiation Oncologist at Alfred Health in Melbourne. 

This is a Themed Podcast supported by our Gold Partners, Johnson & Johnson. 

Even better on our YouTube channel 

Fun today as we go to the OR to test drive some high-fidelity radical prostatectomy models and chat with the team behind UroTrainer - world leaders in urologic simulation. Urologists Gonzalo Vitagliano and Maxi Ringa join us from Buenos Aries to tell us all about UroTrainer and why they have worked hard to create these beautiful models for trainees to improve their skills in minimally-invasive prostate and kidney surgery. 

They also tell us about their range of hands-on courses around the world and their innovative remote laparoscopic training courses so trainees can do training from home while being proctored remotely. 

Declan Murphy also joins senior trainees Christa Babst and Eoin Dinneen in the OR as they test the construct validity of three prostatectomy models using a da Vinci surgical robot. These are beautiful simulation models, best in the business in our view! Well done to the UroTrainer team and keep up the good work.

Thsi one best appreciated on our YouTube channel

Links:
Urotrainer website 

One of our favourite meetings of the year! The EAU Robotic Urology Section (ERUS) Annual Meeting took place in London recently and was an unashamed exposition of robotic surgery in urology. More than 30 amazing live surgeries, and some fantastic plenary sessions focussing on technical aspects. Multiple different robots, and spectacular telesurgery with surgeons sitting in London, performing robotic surgery up to 8000km away! 

Join Host Declan Murphy to get a flavour of this year's meeting, and to hear from many of the surgeons involved.

With thanks to our Silver Partners, Device Technologies. 

This one best appreciated on our YouTube channel.