Editorial by Keith Parsons

We hope that EAU members will have had the opportunity to see the latest edition of European Urology Today (EUT), of which the front page carried a major article by our Guidelines Office Associate, Tom Madden. Tom produced a carefully researched piece explaining the genesis of the randomised controlled clinical trial, on which, of course, much of our guidelines authority is based.Tom’s major commitment with the Guidelines Office, however, is to assist with the whole process of data handling and in particular abstraction of the information contained in the myriad of published articles which have to be reviewed when writing a guideline. His current brief is to assist the Urinary Incontinence panel, and we look forward to seeing the results of this panel`s endeavours in the next major publication of our Guidelines at the 2012 Congress in Paris. He has also been helping the Renal Cancer panel update, and doing so with assistance of the Aberdeen Cochrane Collaboration under the guidance of Professor James N`Dow, who is a member of the Guidelines Office Board and a member of the Non-Neurogenic Male LUTS panel.

The importance of careful analysis of published literature cannot be overstated, and the Guidelines Office would be most interested to hear from any other younger trainees who might be keen to get involved with this type of work. It really is an ideal way to become thoroughly conversant with contemporaneous literature, and of course may ignite an interest in joining a Guidelines Panel when established in fulltime urological clinical practice. Please contact the EAU Office Staff for more information: Guidelines@uroweb.orgOur ad hoc panel which looked at reporting on and grading of urological complications using the Clavien-Dindo system has provoked great interest. Their publication on the topic is currently undergoing peer review, and we look forward to seeing it appear shortly. We hope to explore ways in which this work can be extended. The great advantage will be that if uniformity can be reached about how European urologists report their results in the literature, then truly meaningful comparative audit can be performed and urologists will be able to rank themselves against their peers, as part of the process of continuing quality improvement.

Several of our panels have held meetings over the Summer, and are working hard to complete texts for the Chairmen Meeting in Portugal in November at which drafts for inclusion in next years `big book` will be presented, ready for text editing, review, and typesetting in time for the Paris Congress.

As ever very many thanks to everyone for all the hard work in producing our guidelines of which we can be justly proud.

Keith Parsons

September 2011