Episode 2 of our monthly GU Cast Journal Club and today we focus on two key papers from recent times - the TRANSLATE trial of transperineal vs transrectal biopsy, and Keynote-564 on the role of adjuvant pembrolizomab following nephrectomy.
After great feedback from last month's launch episode, 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

Links to papers and previous podcasts below:
1. Local anaesthetic transperineal biopsy versus transrectal prostate biopsy in prostate cancer detection (TRANSLATE): a multicentre, randomised, controlled trial Lancet Oncology 2025
GU Cast on TRANSLATE

2. Overall Survival with Adjuvant Pembrolizumab in Renal-Cell Carcinoma NEJM 2024
GU Cast on K-564 OS paper

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.

We poke around under the hood of a brand new Cyberknife facility here in Melbourne, the first on the East coast of Australia, and find out what it's all about. What is it for, who might benefit, and being surgeons we have to ask, why do they call it a "knife"?! Is it just to make it sound a bit like surgery - stay tuned to find out!
We chat with our good mate Shankar Siva, stereotactic radiation guru, Nigel Middlebrook, Physicist, shows us the back end, Gemma Waters, Radiation Therapist talks us through planning, and Icon Cancer Group Chief Executive Mark Middleton tells us how he decides which expensive projects his team invests in, and how they partnered with Cyberknife experts 5D Clinics for this project.

Even better on our YouTube channel.

This Themed Episode is supported by our Bronze Partner, Icon Cancer Group.

Links:
5D Clinics Melbourne
Icon Cancer Group

Big news today with the publication in JAMA of the eagerly anticipated PRIME study, a prospective multicentre trial comparing biparametric (bp) with multiparametric (mp) MRI in men suspected of having prostate cancer. Of course, mpMRI includes contrast enhanced sequences following injection of gadolinium, adding time, cost, plus the burden of gadolinium to bpMRI, and there have been suggestions that bpMRI may be just as effective as mpMRI for detecting clinically significant prostate cancer.
We are joined today by trial PI Veeru Kasivisvanathan (Urologist, UCL, London), and Francesco Giganti (Radiologist, UCL, London), to discuss the findings and what this means going forward. And it is all good news!

Your host Declan Murphy is on his own today while Renu Eapen on the road in Singapore.

Even better on our YouTube channel

Links below:
JAMA paper published today
Twitter: @compassurology @veerukasi @giga_fra
Website: compassurology.org

Funders:
John Black Charitable Foundation, Prostate Cancer UK, European Association of Urology Research Foundation, Wolfgang.Dieckmann Foundation.

A quick pod to promote the totally free WRSE12 Live Robotic Surgery Event coming up later this month! A 12 hour festival of incredible robotic surgery performed by top surgeons from around the world, with a special focus on real time digital pathology using the very promising Histolog technology that we recently featured on GU Cast. Live surgeries include upper and lower tract, with an array of robotic technology including the da Vinci Single Port robot.
We chat with Urologist Ruben de Groote about this excellent educational initiative from Surgquest, the digital extension of the ORSI Academy in Belgium, and discuss some of the highlights.
See links below for full details and free registration. Plus watch out for a couple of episodes of GU Cast coming up in October/November to bring you highlights and behind the scenes action.

Links:
WRSE12 event free registration

GU Cast on Histology intraoperative margin assessment

One of our most popular podcasts ever was the one called "Gleason 6 prostate cancer | Why we should rename it (and why we can't)!", posted in December 2022, and featuring Urologists Scott Eggener (Chicago) and Matt Cooperberg), plus Pathologist Eva Comperat (Paris/Vienna). In fact, we still get so many hits on this and active comments on our YouTube site that we thought we better re-visit it!!! Is Gleason 6/Grade Group 1 really cancer at all?? Can't we just re-name it and declare it not-a-cancer??!

Scott and Matt re-join GU Cast today to update us on the campaign!

With usual hosts Renu Eapen and Declan Murphy

Even better on our YouTube channel

Links:
JNCI paper October 2024

Our Dec 2022 podcast on renaming Gleason 6

Here it is, the first of our new series called GU Cast Journal Club! A dedicated GU Cast Journal Club has been suggested by many of our listeners and viewers over the years, and we are really pleased to kick off today with the first monthly episode. And we are particularly pleased to introduce our GU Cast Journal Club Editors, Dr Carlos Delgado (Melbourne, AUS), and Dr Elena Berg (Munich, GER). Declan Murphy is anchoring today's episode while Renu is busy elsewhere.
Each month, two papers will be 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.

For this inaugural epsiode, we have selected two very important recent papers:
1. Active Surveillance for Screen-detected Low- and Intermediate-risk Prostate Cancer: Extended Follow-up up to 25 Years in the GÖTEBORG-1 Trial

2. Standard or Extended Lymphadenectomy for Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer


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

Now this a topic we are ashamed to say we have barely covered in five plus years of GU Cast! A well overdue deep dive into the management of penile cancer, the rarest of all GU cancers, and fair to say the one that gets the least attention, not just from us, but from those who found research/education/novel therapies etc.
We are joined in studio by two world-leading experts in penile cancer, Professors Asif Muneer (University College London), and Nathan Lawrentschuk (Royal Melbourne Hospital & Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre), to cover all the key topics in penile cancer. Everything from peculiarities in incidence, gender-neutral HPV vaccination, right up to organ-preserving surgery and optimal lymph node dissection techniques. Plus a fascinating peak into an AI project of Nathan's focussing on penile cancer diagnosis.
With your usual hosts, Renu Eapen and Declan Murphy.

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Refresh your knowledge of testis cancer with this punchy pod with testis cancer gurus, Prof Christian Kollmannsberger (Vancouver Cancer Centre, Vancouver), and Prof Ben Tran (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne). We pick their brains on three topical areas in testis cancer;
1. Adjuvant chemo - balancing early gains vs late effects. How can we figure out who benefits?
2. Primary RPLND - does robotic surgery change the value proposition of surgery vs chemotherapy?
3. The outstanding mi371 tumour marker - a bluffer's guide

With your usual hosts. Declan Murphy and Renu Eapen.

Even better on our YouTube channel