[Processing of medical products in the urological practice]. / Aufbereitung von Medizinprodukten in der urologischen Praxis.

The reprocessing of medical products is an important topic both in urological practices and in hospitals. The complexity is caused by the increasing variety of medical instruments and also by the increasing demands on the legally required quality of the reprocessing. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) have published recommendations for the processing of MD and last updated them in 2012. This article summarizes the legal framework for the reprocessing of medical devices, how medical devices are categorized before the appropriate procedure for reprocessing can be selected and the various steps in the reprocessing. A special focus is placed on medical products that are typically found in urological practices or outpatient departments and are processed there. Furthermore, the necessity of validating the processing method and the required training (expertise) of the personnel are discussed.

[Learning from coding data-surgical treatment of benign prostatic syndrome : Big data for BPS]. / Lernen aus Kodierungsdaten ­ chirurgische Behandlung des benignen Prostatasyndroms : Big Data bei N40-Diagnose.

Benign prostatic syndrome (BPS) is one of the most common urological diseases. Currently, there are numerous surgical methods to treat BPS. The digitalisation of medicine enables new study approaches in healthcare research using digital data from individual treatment pathways. In the present work, BPS-specific longitudinal trend analyses were performed. Treatment-related figures, both with regard to the therapy methods and predefined patient cohorts, could be examined after validating the datasets. This meant that information on relevant characteristics of surgical BPS treatment could be read and calculations made that reflect the overall impact of these processes. In the future, it is expected that increasingly comprehensive, higher-quality digital datasets on different clinical pictures will be available for analytical purposes. Intensification of research projects in this field is desirable. The results thus obtained enable further optimisation steps of certain treatment actions and provide important key figures for the strategy development of a medical facility.

[Robotics and intraoperative navigation]. / Robotik und intraoperative Navigation.

Urology has always been closely linked to technological progress. In the last few decades, we have witnessed increasing implementation of various technologies and innovations in subdisciplines of urology. While conventional laparoscopy is increasingly being replaced by robot-assisted procedures and the introduction of new robotic systems from various manufactures will continue for years, the field of endourolgy is still not dominated by robotic systems. However, new systems (e.g., autonomous, robot-controlled aquablation of the prostate) are becoming increasingly popular and numerous development projects will also probably change clinical care in coming years. In addition, further advancements in the combination of robotics with intraoperative navigation through the integration of imaging and augmented-reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology can be expected. This combination of navigation and robotic technology is already being used successfully in prostate biopsy.