Comment on: "A Historical Perspective of the Evolution of Laparoscopic Surgeries in Urology" by Soputro et al.

Abstract

Dear Editor: I would like to congratulate Dr. Soputro and collaborators for their fine article entitled "A Historical Perspective of the Evolution of Laparoscopic Surgeries" in the Journal of Endourology; Volume 36, Number 10, October 20221 and, in particular, thank them for mentioning us as authors of the first laparoscopic radical cystectomy, performed in 1993. However, it is notable that they fail to cite the first laparoscopic operative procedure in urology, i.e., the laparoscopic varicocelectomy published in 1988 and later in 1990 in the Journal of Endourology.2,3 Especially considering that this soon became the procedure of choice in adolescents4 and for years was the most performed laparoscopic surgery in urology, along with lymphadenectomy, followed by nephrectomy, because, among other things, at that time these were the only techniques in use5 (Fig. 1). In fact, we presented the technique for the first time at a congress in 1986, but we received so much criticism that we were discouraged and did not publish it until 1988. We were told that it had the serious drawback of breaking the peritoneal barrier with the serious risk that this entailed, and that we had in fact been able to convert something easy into something very complicated. Nevertheless, this technique demonstrated that urological surgery, as conceived at the time, could be done in a very different way.