When Alison Blatt says the surgery technique for bladder cancer has "barely changed in 100 years", her great-grandfather comes to mind. Login or signup to continue reading Paul Blatt was a Jewish urologist in Vienna, who lost his position due to Nazi persecution in 1938. Luckily, he was able to move with his family to Paris.
In 1939, he emigrated to the US and settled in Cincinnati. Dr Blatt, director of research in John Hunter Hospital's urology department, followed in the footsteps of her forebear. The associate professor, of University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), said it wasn't a deliberate decision to become a urologist like her relative.
But the parallels are notable, given they both did bladder cancer surgery. "There have been big improvements in the technology - the lights, sensors and cameras," Dr Blatt said. "And we now have fibre optics, so it has changed a great deal.
"But in the very basic concept of putting a camera inside the bladder, a scope we call it, and removing the cancer piece by piece - that concept hasn't changed. "If you look at the historical pictures of the instruments, they don't look that different either." The first camera to go through the urethra and look in bladders was created in 1878, but the earliest prototype was Bozinni's 1806 urethral viewing tube.
Dr Blatt said it was a "common procedure for urologists like me to go into bladders and remove bladder tumours". She said there wasn't "chemotherapy or radiation .
