Listen to a podcast of the December Letter from the Editor.

Dear Colleagues,

In this, the fifth issue of UIJ, we work to continue to fulfill our objective in creating access to publishing relevant clinical or research articles for both urological disease practitioners and investigators around the globe. Professionals in 125 countries on six continents read the fourth issue, published in October. We are working to receive manuscripts from all interested authors and are also encouraging letters to the Editor on subjects which do not fulfill the criteria for full articles. Such letters could contain comments on a recently published article (a complement to the Beyond the Abstract of the UroToday website) and will also offer an excellent opportunity to provide updates on “hot” topics and to critically discuss controversies important to the field. Through the Managing Editorial team, UIJ is pleased to offer linguistic and grammatical editorial support to those who require assistance with the English language in their manuscripts. We are continuing to build the pool of reviewers as well. If you have interest in submitting a manuscript or becoming a reviewer for the journal, we welcome you to contact us or to go through the link on the journal to express your interest. We are committed to publish more frequently and to maintain a rapid review process. Your contributions are needed and valued, as we are free to authors and to our readers.

In this issue, we present a series of articles with a wide spectrum of topics written by investigators from different parts of the world. Renal transplantation is the treatment of choice for endstage renal failure. Shelbaia and colleagues from Cairo University Hospitals report their experiences of live donor nephrectomies performed through a standard extraperitoneal flank approach and report early and late surgical complications. Munver and colleagues have performed a prospective study on detection of bladder cancer recurrence using NMP22 BladderChek®, which they conclude to be a valuable addition to voided urine cytology for detection of high-risk lesions. Labib, from the University of Zambia, presents a series of patients with symptomatic renal cysts and experiences of treatment by percutaneous aspiration and ethanol sclerotherapy, which is described to be a simple, minimally invasive, and highly effective form of treatment. In addition, the present UIJ issue contains case reports describing treatment of renal cell carcinoma with gallbladder metastasis by Ditah and colleagues, perforating intrauterine devices by Elleithy and colleagues, and a unique case of cross ectopia testes by Zangana. Finally, in the Topical Review, Oh-oka and colleagues discuss the pathogenesis and diagnosis of nocturia. This is a problem not only in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia, but it is common in the elderly of both genders. The authors give a comprehensive overview of different aspects of this disorder, including pathophysiology, epidemiology, and evaluation using a voiding diary.

On behalf of the Editorial team, I thank the contributors of this issue, as well as the reviewers for fair and timely peer reviews. We hope that this issue will stimulate professionals throughout all fields of urology to continue sending manuscripts to the UIJ. Please keep the submissions coming in, and we look forward to hearing from you in the editorial office with any comments, ideas, and contributions that you may have.

Kind regards,

K-E Andersson
Editor-In-Chief
UIJ