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My academic mental health advocacy at my local campus has led me to meet students and staff from all academic levels who feel that they have to hide who they really are. To raise mental health and stigma awareness and support others, I started a personal blog to share my story and co-founded Flourish Maastricht to promote mental health at my own institution.
A striking disproportionate burden of prostate cancer incidence and mortality exists between men of West African ancestry and men of European ancestry. Identifying distinct tumour genetic biomarkers and immunomodulating signals in patients with diverse genetic ancestry might reduce the disparities in prostate cancer prognosis, treatment outcomes and mortality in high-risk racial groups.
Sperm characteristics are routinely assessed in fertility clinics as decisive factors to select sperm for improved intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) outcomes. A recent study suggests that, in patients with non-obstructive azoospermia, no specific defect or combination of abnormalities in testicular sperm precluded chance of pregnancy, while also suggesting sperm motility and acrosome defects are the proxies relevant to ICSI outcomes.
Primary hyperoxalurias are a devastating family of diseases that eventually lead to end-stage renal disease. In this Review, Shee and Stoller discuss current treatment paradigms for primary hyperoxalurias, new therapeutics and their mechanisms of action, and future directions for novel research in the field.
Catstagnetti and El-Ghoneimi provide an overview of the classification, assessment and management of penile curvature associated with proximal hypospadias in children. Methods of curvature measurement and surgical techniques are detailed, in addition to discussion of the importance of patient-reported outcomes.
In shared decision-making (SDM), patients and providers work together to determine the best course of action based on the current evidence and the patient’s own preferences. Tools such as decision aids can support SDM for complex decisions, but these decision aids are also associated with barriers to SDM implementation, including patient, provider and systematic challenges. In this Review, the authors discuss opportunities for and limitations of SDM in urology and female pelvic medicine and reconstruction, as well as decision aids available in the field.
The placebo effect is partly the result of positive expectations of the recipient on the state of health. Conversely, a nocebo effect is when negative expectations from a substance lead to poor treatment outcomes and/or adverse events. In this Review, the authors describe and discuss the placebo and nocebo effects in selected benign urological diseases.
