On the 20th of November 2020, the Philippine Society of Urologic Oncologists (PSUO) has once again organized topics that are relevant and informative to this ever-changing disease – cancer. For many years, the evolution of this disease never ceased to challenge our understanding about its behavior and how we treat our patients using the latest technology as well as conducting best practices to our patients based from research outcomes. The three (3) hours urologic cancer lecture series was divided into three parts – renal / prostate / urothelial cancer moderated by Dr. M. Batucan, Dr. R. Arcinas, and Dr. N. Uy respectively.

Dr. Jose Vicente T. Prodigalidad, the vice president of PSUO, started the renal lecture series discussing basic surgical principles of renal cancer surgery followed by an in depth discussion of when is the best time to do partial versus radical nephrectomy. Dr. Prodigalidad also emphasized during his lecture that surgeries performed either through laparoscopy or open procedure should be in accordance to one’s confidence and surgical prowess. At the end of the day, success of the surgery is reflected by the outcome and patient safety.

The second half of the renal cancer series was delivered by Dr. Rudolfo I. De Guzman focusing on partial nephrectomy (nephron-sparing surgery). Dr. De Guzman showed us a walkthrough of how cancer treatment evolved from its birth up to the 21st century. Highlight of his discussion pertains on how comorbidities (eg. hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease) affect renal function over time.

The advent of PET-CT imaging for prostate cancer has been one of the gamechangers in the management of this disease. Nuclear medicine has come a long way as the field evolved from a diagnostic tool into a therapeutic modality. Dr. Jamilla Cecilia L. Gomez showed the audience a different perspective into this topic as she discussed the role of ‘theranostics’ in prostate cancer management. This was then followed by a detailed discussion by Dr. Dennis P. Serrano regarding paradigm shift in the management of metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (MHSPC) – how we make the best individualized choices among all options given for best outcomes.

Finally, the last part of the urologic cancer series – urothelial cancer, was spearheaded by Dr. De Guzman and Dr. John P. Querol, giving us a talk about our options despite the global shortage of BCG as well as the role of immuno-oncology in managing urothelial cancer.

Difficult and challenging as it seems, the speakers surely gave the participants a wonderful insight of how urologic cancers change over time and how we adapt to manage these diseases.