BPH – Minimally Invasive Therapy

Transcript

“Microwave therapy and radio-frequency or TUNA therapy are considered older and less effective deliveries of heat, they’re both conductive in the way the heat is delivered into the prostate. Hot point dissipates rapidly, hard to control the heating, but ultimately heating was designed to kill the cells of the prostate. These 30 minute procedures were quite uncomfortable. They always required a catheter. Most urologists no longer perform TUMT or microwave therapy, or TUNA, TUNA radio-frequency therapy. In part, because not only were they quite uncomfortable, required a catheter, but their durability was also limited. They didn’t last as long as we suspected they should. More recently another form of heat therapy is called the Resume procedure and it’s actually delivery of steam into the prostate. Creates the same sort of effect, but it’s done so a little more precisely because this is convective rather than conductive therapy.

Bottom line is still that heat is delivered to the prostate. Consequently, a catheter is required as the prostate swells and this catheter is left for a varying amount of time. Downstream now five years, the therapy called Resume has demonstrated good performance with respect to unblocking the prostate. But the first few months of the recovery can be challenging. The other class of therapy is the device disobstruction, if you will. A mechanical device insertion into the prostate, the first of which, and the most successful of which is the UroLift procedure. UroLift involves placement of little anchors into the prostate. Imagine them like wall anchors that are then tightened, and in essence, the portion of the prostate that is snugged up is the softer, the swelling, the ad noma, and it’s squeezed towards the wall of the prostate, where the anchor exists. Similarly, on the other side, now we’re beginning to create a channel. This procedure is well tolerated. It’s less involved, certainly less uncomfortable than the heat therapies. Almost all of our patients require no catheter. And the recovery period is much shorter than when the prostate’s recovering from heat installation. We now have good five-year evidence, just like the Resume procedure, that the effectiveness is there. But when I compare the two, the UroLift procedure is less uncomfortable and provides a better patient experience than the Resume procedure.”