BPH – Overview

Transcript

Today we’re going to talk about BPH. Before we talk about what BPH is, it’s important to understand the more basic question. What is the prostate? The prostate gland is part of the male urinary tract. A man urinates right through a channel in the center of the prostate gland. So just to give you a visual, if this is the bladder, my hand is the prostate. The urinary channel runs right through the center of the prostate. Now in most men, the prostate is about the size of a walnut. As it enlarges, it could get very large, the size of my hand, or even a large orange. The prostate has several functions. Generally speaking, it’s involved in ejaculation. It adds some fluid to the ejaculate, but otherwise it can be a bit of a nuisance, causing urinary blockage symptoms. BPH stands for benign prostate hyperplasia, which technically means just an increase in the number of cells in the prostate. But in common practice, it’s meant to indicate that the prostate is swollen or has gotten enlarged.