Catheter-Free Prostate Treatment Safe and Effective

Catheter-free lithium triborate laser therapy benefits benign prostatic hyperplasia

MONDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) -- The catheter-free lithium triborate laser photoselective vaporization prostatectomy (PVP) is both safe and effective for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms secondary to benign prostatic hyperplasia, according to a report in the October issue of Lasers in Surgery and Medicine.

Massimiliano Spaliviero, M.D., of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, and colleagues evaluated the safety and efficacy of catheter-free lithium triborate laser PVP for the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia. The authors report on a consecutive case series and examined several clinical outcome measures.

Overall, 70 consecutive outpatient procedures were identified with 70 percent being discharged without and 30 percent being discharged with a urethral catheter. There were no significant pre-operative differences in age, American Urological Association Symptom Score (AUASS), maximum urinary flow rate (Qmax), post-void residual or prostate volume between those discharged with and without urethral catheters nor any procedural differences in laser time and energy usage, the researchers report. Significant improvement, irrespective of urethral catheter status at discharge, for AUASS, Qmax and post-void residual values was observed, and adverse events were uncommon with no significant differences between the groups.

"Our results with lithium triborate laser PVP, as those reported in the literature with potassium-titanyl-phospate laser post-void residual, show that the advantages of this procedure, including an almost bloodless field, the prevention of clinically significant post-operative hematuria and a short catheterization interval, allow for performance of an outpatient laser prostate vaporization," the authors conclude.

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