Urological patients' awareness of smoking as a risk factor for bladder cancer is lower than that for other smoking-related entities. The role of the urologist should not be restricted only to diagnosis and treatment, but should also include counseling patients on the need for radical changes of their life style.

Complications concerning a primary perforation of the bladder and instillation of chemotherapeutic drugs can be easily avoided by recognising the perforation intraoperatively. However, we postulate that a delayed perforation of the bladder might occur due to the cytotoxic effect to the bladder tissue of the instilled drugs.

Psychological morbidity is increasingly reported in cancer survivors. The authors' objective was to determine the presence of acute posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in prostate cancer (PC) patients following radical prostatectomy. Fifteen patients who underwent radical prostatectomy for localized prostate cancer were assessed for the presence of PTSD-related symptoms by completing the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS), a month following the procedure. A group of 20 patients who underwent surgery for benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) served as the control group. PTSD total scores were significantly higher in PC patients when compared with BPH patients, whose PTSD scores did not differ from those reported in the general population (32.6 ± 18.5 vs. 11.3 ± 9.7, p = .001). PTSD did not vary among PC patients when adjusted for educational status. PTSD symptoms are common among patients undergoing radical prostatectomy and independent of their educational level. Research investigating these aspects of posttreatment psychological adjustment is needed for developing well-targeted psychological interventions.

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Purpose: To evaluate the rate of any type of anticoagulant drug use in urological inpatients and patients awareness of their effect on coagulation. Material and methods: This observational study was conducted prospectively in a cohort of 193 consecutive urological inpatients who were asked to state the medications they were taking and following that, were specifically asked whether they were taking aspirin or other antiplatelet/anticoagulant agents. In case they did so, they were further asked why they were taking them, whether they knew their effect on coagulation and who had informed them on the matter. Results: Forty-seven patients received some kind of antithrombotic treatment. Twenty-nine per cent of aspirin users had to be specifically prompted in order to state its use, in comparison to 35.7% and 25% of other antiplatelets and warfarin users, respectively. Half of patients receiving warfarin were not aware of its effect on coagulation in comparison to 32.3% and 21.4% of those taking aspirin and other antiplatelets, respectively. Conclusion: Urologists should be aware of the high use of such agents by their patients and that not all patients are aware of their effect on coagulation, while some, even fail to report their use and have to be specifically prompted