The agreement between observers on the Gleason sum was moderate. The novel Gleason grade grouping did not improve interobserver agreement. Further studies are needed to confirm these results on interobserver variability.
Objective
To present a nation‐wide analysis of the workload of urology departments in Turkey week‐by‐week during Covid‐19 pandemic.
Methodology
The centers participating in the study were divided into three groups as tertiary referral centers, state hospitals and private practice hospitals. The number of outpatients, inpatients, daily interventions and urological surgeries were recorded prospectively between 9‐March‐2020 and 31‐May‐2020. All these variables were recorded for the same time interval of 2019 as well. The weekly change of the workload of urology during pandemic period was evaluated; also the workload of urology and the distributions of certain urological surgeries were compared between the pandemic period and the same time interval of the year 2019.
Results
A total of 51 centers participated in the study. The number of outpatients, inpatients, urological surgeries and daily interventions were found to be dramatically decreased by the third week of pandemics in state hospitals and tertiary referral centers; however the daily urological practice were similar in private practice hospitals throughout the pandemic period. When the workload of urology in pandemic period and the same time interval of the year 2019 were compared; a huge decrease was observed in all variables during pandemic period. However, temporary measures like ureteral stenting, nephrostomy placement and percutaneous cystostomy have been found to increase during Covid‐19 pandemic compared to normal life.
Conclusions
Covid‐19 pandemic significantly effected the routine daily urological practice likewise other subspecialties and priority was given to emergent and non‐deferrable surgeries by urologists in concordance with published clinical guidelines.
Although non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is widely seen in men, most laboratory studies of new intravesical therapies to prevent NMIBC have been conducted on female animals. In addition, ozone (O 3 ) has been shown to be a beneficial agent as an intravesical application in the treatment of various disorders. In the current study, we evaluated the immunohistopathological and oxidative-antioxidative effects of intravesical O 3 treatment on n-methyl-n-nitrosourea (MNU)-induced NMIBC. Male Wistar-Albino rats (n=51) were divided into four groups: sham (n=6), O 3 only (n=15), MNU only (n=15), and MNU+O 3 (n=15). The MNU-only and MNU+O 3 groups received MNU, and the O 3 -only group received saline every other week for 10 weeks. The MNU-only group received 1 ml saline in place of O 3 treatment, whereas the O 3 -only and MNU+O 3 groups were treated with 1 ml 25 µg/ml O 3 between the 7th and 12th weeks. Rat bladders were collected in the 15th week for immunohistopathology and oxidant-antioxidant quantitation. Oxidant-antioxidant parameters were determined by ELISA. Although all surviving rats in the MNU-only group had preneoplastic (4/11, 36.4%) or neoplastic changes (7/11, 63.6%), a completely normal urothelium was observed in 2 rats (2/12, 16.7%) in the MNU+O 3 -group (P=0.478). More high-grade lesions were observed in the MNUonly group (4/11, 36.4%) than in the MNU+O 3 group (1/12, 8.3%) (P=0.120). All oxidant-antioxidant parameters significantly increased (P<0.05) in the O 3 -only group compared with the sham group. However, only antioxidant superoxide dismutase was remarkably higher (178.9%, P=0.060) in the MNU+O 3 group compared with the MNU-only group. This is the first methodologically and pathologically well-described male rat orthotopic bladder carcinogenesis model with intravesical MNU and administration of O 3 in NMIBC.
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