A very successful robotic urology meeting organised in Ankara, Turkey which transferred the experience of worldwide-known robotic surgeons from the USA and Canada to the participants

The meeting offered a very attractive scientific program including a combination of a course and a symposium to the participants. The meeting, which was accredited with 15 CME points by EBU EU-ACME, included live robotic surgical procedures, lectures and video presentations with interactive discussion.

This year, two robotic urology surgeons, Dr. John W. Davis from MD Anderson Cancer Centre, Houston, Texas, USA and Dr. Kevin C. Zorn from The University of Montreal Health Centre, Department of Urology, Montreal, Canada, participated in our meeting. Dr. Davis performed a very challenging live case of robotic radical prostatectomy and bilateral extended pelvic lymph node dissection on a patient with cT3 disease by using the Da Vinci surgical robot. Dr. Zorn performed a very demonstrative live case of robotic partial nephrectomy on a patient with right kidney mass that was detected incidentally by using the Da Vinci surgical robot and an additional live case of Greenlight XPS laser prostatectomy on a patient with BPH. Both of the invited robotic surgeons shared their experience and knowledge with the audience with interactive discussions. Professor Remzi Saglam from Ankara, Turkey performed a very interesting live case of robotic flexible retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS) and laser lithotripsy on a patient with kidney stone by using the ‘Avicenna’ Turkish robot, developed by his team of engineers in Ankara, Turkey. This attracted the attention of the audience as they were able to witness how this robot significantly facilitates the performance of RIRS.

During this meeting, lectures were given in detail on how to assist in robotic urological procedures, for the assistant surgeons. Although robotic surgery is performed by the console surgeon, the tasks of assisting surgeons are very important. Therefore, additional lectures were included relating to robotic urology nursing in the operating room, given by our chief robotic surgery nurse Miss Gul Yildirim.

A course book edited by Dr. Canda (written in English), including ‘Surgical techniques of robotic urology procedures, How to assist in robotic urology and Robotic urology operating room nursing’ was also distributed to the participants during the meeting. This can be accessed for free by logging onto the meeting website:http://www.robotictimes.org.

Robotic surgery was initiated for the first time at our institution in Ankara, Turkey by Professor Balbay, the founding chief of the department. In 2012, our team organised the 1st Ankara Robotic Urology Symposium at the same venue on 28th April 2012 (1). Last year’s invited robotic urology surgeons included: Professor Jens Rassweiler, Dr. Georg Schön and Dr. Ali Serdar Gözen, (all from Germany) who performed very demonstrative live robotic urological cases.

Dr. A. Erdem Canda

Secretary of Symposium & Course

Associate Professor of Urology

Member of Robotic Urology Group

(Young Academic Urologists-YAU, European Association of Urology-EAU)

Yildirim Beyazit University

School of Medicine

Ankara Ataturk Training & Research Hospital

Department of Urology

Ankara, Turkey

E-mail: [email protected]

www.robotictimes.org

References:

1. Canda AE. 1st Robotic Urology Symposium in Ankara, Turkey. European Urology Today. 2012;24(3):6.

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