Letter from the Editor

Dear colleagues,

Like last year’s meeting, EAU21 was again held as a virtual meeting. Some Faculty members, Moderators, and (co)-Chairpersons had the privilege to visit the highly professional studios in Hilversum, close to Amsterdam. This allowed for at least some physical interaction and discussion.

It is my pleasure to highlight some of the topics covered in this report.

This report contains presentations selected for the ‘Best of EAU’ sessions on LUTS and BPH, prostate cancer, testis and penile cancer, bladder cancer, and renal cancer, presented by the different experts, members of the Scientific Congress Office.

Attempts are underway to establish better understandable symptom score systems for patients with LUTS, as well as risk calculators that can predict treatment-induced changes in IPSS scores.

In prostate cancer, ¹⁷⁷Lu-PSMA-617 appears promising and is becoming a new class of effective therapy, while in mCSPC the addition of abiraterone to ADT and docetaxel improved significantly the radiographic PFS (PEACE-1).

Management of indeterminate small testis masses is challenging and some important recommendations concerning the preservation of fertility and hormonal function have been described, including the advice to have every case reviewed by a multidisciplinary team.

Patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer that have a higher survival benefit from adjuvant immunotherapy could be distinguished by their circulating tumour DNA positivity. This was demonstrated in the IMvigor010 trial and will be further investigated in the subsequent IMvigor011 trial.

In renal cancer, KEYNOTE-564 has generated the first positive phase 3 results with adjuvant checkpoint inhibition. These results support the use of pembrolizumab as a potential new standard of care for patients with RCC in the adjuvant setting.

These and more topics from the conference are outlined in this report. Please enjoy the highlights of EAU21 and hopefully next year we will meet again face-to-face, in Amsterdam. We look forward to welcoming you all again.

All the best,

Prof. Dr Hendrik Van Poppel

Urology, KU Leuven, Belgium

EAU Policy Office Chairman

 

Biography:

Hendrik Van Poppel, MD, graduated in General Surgery and in Urology and received his postgraduate training in London, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Mainz, and Rotterdam. He obtained a PhD in Medical Sciences in 1988. He became Fellow of the European Board of Urology in 1992, full Professor of Urology in 1993, and Chair of the Department of Urology in Leuven in 2002 until 2015 when he became Emeritus Professor.

He was Director of the European School of Urology in 2004, before becoming EAU Adjunct Secretary General, responsible for Education, in 2012 until 2021, when he was voted in as Chairman of the newborn EAU Policy Office.

Prof. Van Poppel attended countless scientific meetings and gave >1,000 lectures at National and International podia. He has published over 220 papers as first author on Uro-Oncology, has co-authored more than 500 and (co-)edited several books on kidney and prostate cancer. He is Reviewer and Editorial Board Member for more than 30 urological and uro-oncological journals.

He received the Distinguished Career Award of the Société Internationale d’Urologie (SIU) in Buenos Aires in 2016 and the Frans Debruyne Life Time Achievement Award of the EAU in 2020, handed over at the EAU21 Virtual Congress in 2021.​

Conflict of Interest Statement: Nothing to disclose

 

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Posted on 31 August, 202131 August, 2021