What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? During radical prostatectomy, urological surgeons have tried to identify the “cord‐like NVB” at the lateral aspect of the prostate. However, little histological or physiological investigation was conducted to verify that the NVB identified at surgery really included the cavernous nerve. Recently, there have been observations that refute the dogma that the cavernous nerve is always within the NVB. In this study, we have described a hammock‐like distribution of the nerves on which the prostate rests, demonstrating that the NVB is more a network of multiple fine dispersed nerves than a distinct structure. We presented a novel nerve‐sparing approach to complete hammock preservation. This risk‐stratified approach for determining the degree of nerve sparing based on the patient's likelihood of ipsilateral EPE seeks to categorize patients for optimal balance between oncological outcomes and functional outcomes. OBJECTIVES: To report the potency and oncological outcomes of patients undergoing robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) using a risk‐stratified approach based on layers of periprostatic fascial dissection. We also describe the surgical technique of complete hammock preservation or nerve sparing grade 1. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective study of 2317 patients who had robotic prostatectomy by a single surgeon at a single institution between January 2005 and June 2010. Included patients were those with ≥1 year of follow‐up and who were potent preoperatively, defined as having a sexual health inventory for men (SHIM) questionnaire score of >21; thus, the final number of patients in the study cohort was 1263. Patients were categorized pre‐operatively by a risk‐stratified approach into risk grades 1–4, where risk grade 1 patients received nerve‐sparing grade 1 or complete hammock preservation and so on for risk grades 2–4, as long as intraoperative findings permitted the planned nerve sparing. We considered return to sexual function post‐operatively by two criteria: i) ability to have successful intercourse (score of ≥4 on question 2 of the SHIM) and ii) SHIM >21 or return to baseline sexual function. RESULTS: There was a significant difference across different NS grades in terms of the percentages of patients who had intercourse and returned to baseline sexual function ( P < 0.001), with those that underwent NS grade 1 having the highest rates (90.9% and 81.7%) as compared to NS grades 2 (81.4% and74.3%), 3 (73.5% and 66.1%), and 4 (62% and 54.5%). The overall positive surgical margin (PSM) rates for patients with NS grades 1, 2, 3, and 4 were 9.9%, 8.1%, 7.2%, and 8.7%, respectively ( P = 0.636). The extraprostatic extension rates were 11.6%, 14.3%, 29.3%, and 36.2%, respectively ( P < 0.001). Similarly, in patients younger than 60, intercourse and return to baseline sexual function rates were 94.9% and 84.3% for NS grade 1 as compared to 85.5% and 77.2% for NS grades 2, 76.9% and 69% for NS grades 3, and 64.8% and 57.7% for NS Grade 4 ( P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The risk‐stratified approach and anatomical technique of neural‐hammock sparing described in the present manuscript was effective in improving potency outcomes of patients without compromising cancer control. Patients with greater degrees of NS had higher rates of intercourse and return to baseline sexual function without an increase in PSM rates.

The recent outbreak of infections and the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 represent one of the most severe threats to human health in more than a century. Emerging data from the United States and elsewhere suggest that the disease is more severe in men. Knowledge gained, and lessons learned, from studies of the biological interactions and molecular links that may explain the reasons for the greater severity of disease in men, and specifically in the age group at risk for prostate cancer, will lead to better management of COVID-19 in prostate cancer patients. Such information will be indispensable in the current and post-pandemic scenarios.

ChatGPT Health was launched in January 2026 as OpenAI’s consumer health tool and has reached millions of users. Here we conducted a structured stress test of triage recommendations using 60 clinician-authored vignettes across 21 clinical domains under 16 factorial conditions, yielding 960 total responses. Performance followed an inverted U-shaped pattern, with the most dangerous failures concentrated at clinical extremes—nonurgent presentations (35%) and emergency conditions (48%). Among gold-standard emergencies, the system undertriaged 52% of cases, directing patients with diabetic ketoacidosis or impending respiratory failure to 24–48 h evaluation rather than the emergency department, while correctly triaging classical emergencies such as stroke and anaphylaxis. When family or friends minimized symptoms, indicating anchoring bias, triage recommendations shifted significantly in edge cases (odds ratio = 11.7, 95% confidence interval = 3.7–36.6), with the majority of shifts toward less urgent care. Crisis-intervention messages activated unpredictably across suicidal ideation presentations, occurring more frequently when patients described no specific method than when they did. Patient race, sex and barriers to care did not show significant effects, although confidence intervals did not exclude clinically meaningful differences. These findings reveal missed high-risk emergencies and inconsistent activation of crisis safeguards, raising safety concerns that warrant prospective validation before consumer-scale deployment of artificial intelligence triage systems.

To demonstrate a novel technique of self-cinching anastomosis using a barbed and looped suture during robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP). This is a feasibility study of 50 consecutive patients who underwent this novel self-cinching anastomotic technique using a V-Loc™ 180 absorbable barbed suture after RARP for clinically localized prostate cancer. The results were then compared with 50 consecutive patients who underwent RARP by the same surgeon before this new technique. We examined whether this novel technique had any effects on posterior reconstruction time, vesicourethral anastomosis time, and thus total reconstruction and operative time by inference. The V-Loc 180 group had significantly shorter posterior reconstruction (40 seconds vs 60 seconds; P ≤ 0.001) and vesicourethral anastomotic times (7 min vs 12 min; P ≤ 0.001). By inference, this meant that total reconstruction and operative times were also significantly less (8 minutes vs 13.5 min; P ≤ 0.001 and 106 min vs 114.5 minutes; P ≤ 0.001, respectively). We have shown that this technique is feasible and improves posterior reconstruction and anastomotic times. Further follow-up will determine any benefits of this technique on anastomotic urinary leak rates, continence, and catheter removal times.