ABSTRACT Purpose: Although the worldwide percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) practice pat- terns determined via a survey sent to members of the Endourological Society have been published, differences in PCNL practice patterns among Latin American urologists based on endourological or lithiasis training have not been published. To determine the PCNL practice patterns among Latin American urologists with and without training in endourology. Materials and Methods: The SurveyMonkey® web platform was used to develop a 27-item survey on PCNL for the treatment of renal stones, and the survey was sent via e- -mail and other electronic media to 2000 urologists from 15 Latin American countries. Endourology-trained (group 1) and nontrained urologists (group 2) were analyzed. The group results were compared using the chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests. SPSS version 20 for Windows was used for all analyses. Results: A total of 331 urologists responded to the survey (rate of 16.55%): 221 (66.7%) in group 1 and 110 (33.2%) in group 2). In groups 1 and 2, 91.9% and 63.2% performed PCNL, respectively: 85.1% and 58.5% used preoperative tomography, respectively; 12.7% and 4.7% used preoperative nephrolitometry nomograms, respectively: 45.2% and 32.1% used endoscopic combined intrarenal surgery, respectively: 68.3% and 38.7% used mul- tiple percutaneous tract realization, respectively: and 19.9% and 5.7% used minimally invasive PCNL, respectively (all p=0.0005). Conclusions: Statistically significant differences were observed in PCNL practice patterns of Latin American urologists with and without training in endourology. Specific training in endourology significantly influence the practice patterns of Latin American urologists.

This paper reports the use of polysaccharides extracted from seed of Persea americana var. Hass in the synthesis of acrylic hydrogels. The effects of the chemical composition (acrylamide/acrylic acid), the concentration of crosslinking agent (glycerol diacrylate) and the type of initiation (redox, photoinitiation) of the hydrogels were evaluated with and without polysaccharides. Xerogels were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), while for the swollen hydrogels the swelling kinetic and mechanical properties were evaluated. The kinetic parameters were obtained using the second order equation proposed by Schott, where it is reported that by increasing the concentration of the crosslinking agent, the degree of swelling is reduced because of the greater structural level. The increase of the amount of acrylamide and the amount of polysaccharides causes also a decrease in the swelling degree. The type of initiation also affected the hydrogels swelling kinetic, the photoinitiated hydrogels were the ones that captured less water. Moreover, the increasing of the glass transition temperature and the compression modulus with the crosslinking agent concentration and molar ratio AAm/AAc are observed for hydrogels with and without polysaccharides. The results demonstrate a successful incorporation of polysaccharides into the polymeric network.