DSC prize interviews: celebrating on South Asian literature

At the end of November the shortlist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature was revealed at LSE. Sonali Campion conducted interviews at the event with the prize’s co-founder Surina Narula MBE, shortlisted author Romesh Gunesekera and chair of the judging panel Keki Daruwalla. On the eve of the Jaipur Literature Festival where the DSC Prize winner will be announced, India at LSE shares their reflections on the prize, the shortlist and writing about South Asia

Neurovascular structure-adjacent frozen-section examination robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy: outcomes from 500 consecutive cases in the UK

© 2021 Springer Nature. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11701-021-01324-2The purpose is to report the United Kingdom’s largest single-centre experience of robotically assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomies (RALP), using the neurovascular structure-adjacent frozen-section (NeuroSAFE) technique. We describe the utilisation and outcomes of this technique. This is a retrospective study from 2012 to 2019 on 520 patients undergoing NeuroSAFE RALP at our Institution. Our Institution’s database was analysed for false-positive frozen-section (FS) margins as confirmed on paraffin histopathological analysis: functional outcomes of potency, continence, and biochemical recurrence (BCR). The median (range) of console time was 145 (90–300) min. In our cohort, positive FS was seen in 30.7% (160/520) of patients, with a confirmatory paraffin analysis in 91.8% of our patients’ cohort (147/160). The neurovascular bundles (NVBs) that underwent secondary resection contained tumour in 26.8% (43/160) of the cases. Biochemical recurrence (BCR) was 6.7% (35/520), of which FS was positive in 40% (14/35) of those cases. There were insufficient evidence of a statistical association of urinary incontinence and positive surgical margin rates according to NS or NVB resection. NeuroSAFE enables intraoperative confirmation of the oncologic safety of a NS procedure. Patients with a positive FS on NeuroSAFE can be converted to a negative surgical margin (NSM) by ipsilateral wide resection. This spared 1 in 4 men from positive margins posterolaterally in our series. Limitations are the absence of a matched contemporary cohort of NS RALP without NeuroSAFE in our centre.Peer reviewe