A common health-care problem worldwide, urinary tract infection (UTI), represents a disease of significant impact on every country's economy, being the most common cause of hospitalization among elderly people and the most common cause of antibiotic prescription in primary care. Diagnosing and managing upper and lower UTI have always been a challenge to physicians, given its high prevalence, risk of recurrence and improper treatment, and the fact of worldwide increase in antibiotic resistance, necessitating implementation of a proper antibiotic stewardship. Urinary infections are twice more likely to occur in females compared to males and its prevalence increases with increasing age. The following is a comprehensive review paper about UTI in females, discussing the various factors leading to a complicated infection. The various etiologies and microbiologies of UTI are also highlighted. In addition to various usual antibiotic regimens for treating UTI, a significant number of nonantimicrobial treatment modalities are highlighted and described in this manuscript, including the novel use of intravesical antibiotics and vaccines for suppression treatment. Finally, a pathway is suggested for the proper diagnosis and treatment that ensures antibiotic stewardship in order to decrease long-term complications.

Background: Obesity is a worldwide challenging health problem. Weight loss through medical management of obesity has not always been successful, thus, giving rise to the need for surgical intervention. Bariatric surgery has been shown to be helpful for morbidly obese patients. However, studies have also shown the effect of surgery on stone formation, fertility and erectile function. This review summarizes the main findings of several studies that analyze stone formation and fertility in men as well as erectile function post bariatric surgery. The underlying pathophysiologic alterations post bariatric surgery include increased absorption of oxalate leading to hyperoxaluria, hypocitraturia and increased urinary calcium oxalate supersaturation. Contradicting data exist on the effect of bariatric surgery on fertility and erectile function. Further studies are needed to analyze the mechanisms.

Kidney transplantation for end-stage renal disease remains the preferred solution due to its survival advantage, enhanced quality of life and cost-effectiveness. The main obstacle worldwide with this modality of treatment is the scarcity of organs. The demand has always exceeded the supply resulting in different types of donations. Kidney donation includes pure living related donors, deceased donors, living unrelated donors (altruistic), paired kidney donation and more recently compensated kidney donation. Ethical considerations in live donor kidney transplantation have always created a debate especially when rewarding unrelated donors. In this paper, we examine the problems of financially driven kidney transplantation, the ethical legitimacy of this practice, and propose some innovative methods and policies that could be adopted to ensure a better practice with accepted ethical guidelines.

Prostate cancer is a key health concern for men with its etiology still under investigation. Recently, the role of dietary supplements has been noted to have a major inhibitory effect on prostate cancer and numerous studies have been conducted in this regard. This review provides a summary on numerous recent studies conducted in this field. Some of the studies reviewed revealed a protective role for supplements, and others showed no correlation while some even had an adverse effect. The mechanism of how these supplements act on the prostate is still not clear. Further studies are warranted especially for supplements that have been shown to have a potential inhibitory role in prostate cancer.