Enlarged Prostate Treatment
Offering Advanced Care for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia or BPH
Enlarged prostate, also known as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), is a common urological condition affecting men beginning around age 40. Rates of BPH increase with age; more than 90% of men over age 80 have BPH.
BPH causes a range of urinary problems, which can affect quality of life: causing pain or difficulty with urination, disrupting sleep, and requiring frequent trips to the bathroom. BPH is commonly treated with medication, but for some men, this causes unpleasant side effects, such as sexual performance problems.
SLUCare Physician Group urologists offer advanced treatments for BPH for men seeking solutions beyond pharmaceutical treatment. Options include surgery to remove enlarged prostate tissue, as well as procedures to shrink prostate tissues and restore urinary function. There is even an in-office procedure that uses local anesthesia and doesn’t require a hospital stay or lengthy recovery.
Rezūm for Enlarged Prostate
Hear a SLUCare urologist explain how this new approach to treating enlarged prostate can ease symptoms with fewer side effects.
BPH Symptoms & Treatment
Watch our webinar discussing the signs, symptoms and treatment options for enlarged prostate.
Treatment Options for BPH
SLUCare has one of the first specialists in the St. Louis region to offer Rezum, a new, FDA-approved procedure that can be performed in the doctor’s office under local anesthesia in about an hour. Rezum uses blasts of water vapor to shrink enlarged prostate tissues, easing the symptoms of BPH. There is minimal downtime or after-care following the procedure, and patients may begin to see improvement in urinary function as early as two weeks after treatment. Best of all, Rezum has no sexual side effects, common with BPH medications. The procedure is effective for about 95% of patients, meaning no additional follow-up procedures are required.
UroLift is a good option for men who did well on BPH medication, but would prefer a solution that relieves symptoms without medication. UroLift is a minimally invasive outpatient procedure in which the surgeon inserts a small device, relieving pressure on the urethra and allowing urine to flow more freely. It accomplishes this without cutting or removing the prostate, thereby preserving sexual function. Men go home the same day with no catheter and no medications.
TURP is a surgical procedure that removes enlarged prostate tissue to relieve pressure on the urethra so urine can easily exit the bladder. Patients receive general anesthesia for this surgery, which takes between 45 minutes and 2 hours to complete. An overnight stay in the hospital is required. TURP is one of the most common treatments for BPH because it offers excellent success rates for relieving troubling urinary problems.
In this procedure, the surgeon uses a laser to vaporize enlarged prostate tissue to reduce its size, thereby opening the urethra and allowing urine to pass through easily. Patients may go home the same day with a catheter or stay in the hospital overnight. Laser vaporization can be performed on patients taking blood thinners, as this procedure carries a lower risk of bleeding than some other treatments. Success rates are high, and most patients recover in just one to two weeks.