Dr JM Gil-Vernet took part as a visiting lecturer in the 1st International Uroanatomy Congress (www.uroanatomy.com), held between 14 and 16 June in Izmir (Turkey). Several urology specialists and anatomists participated in the congress, and debated key issues in urogenital topographical anatomy and surgical technique. Dr JM Gil-Vernet delivered a lecture titled: “Misconceptions in Uroanatomy. Reality and fantasy in the male perineum anatomy.” Unpublished images of histotopographical slices and drawings from the Salvador Gil Vernet Collection of Urology Drawings were projected.
Dr JM Gil-Vernet highlighted the anatomical errors that, in the field of the male perineum anatomy, have been repeated and copied over the last two hundred years. The lecturer also showed that the muscles known as the superficial transverse perineal and deep transverse perineal muscles, and the so-called urogenital diaphragm, do not exist yet they are illustrated in great detail in the Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy (5th edition) and in the Campbell-Walsh Urology (10th edition, 2012). The rectourethral muscle should be considered a fibromuscular mass and not a muscle, because it consists of smooth and striated fibres without having an specific function as a muscle. During the conference, Dr Gil-Vernet also demonstrated that the urethral crest – which extends caudally from the verumontanum – is formed by the posterior prostatourethral muscular bundle, a muscular formation that the Spanish urologist, Salvador Gil Vernet, described 60 years ago. He also provided a detailed description of the complex anatomical structure that makes up the central perineal tendon.