Surgery for Enlarged Prostate

Benign prostatic hypertrophy (also known as enlarged prostate) is a very common disease among men over 50. It consists of the enlargement of the prostate, causing urinary symptoms of greater or less intensity which affects the quality of life.

Nowadays, there are many treatments that allow solving the problem adequately. However, surgery is usually necessary to treat an enlarged prostate, especially when it has grown in certain established dimensions.

Surgical techniques for enlarged prostate

Currently, there are different types of surgeries for treating benign prostatic hypertrophy. We will describe each one of them briefly:

Transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP):

TURP is the most common procedure to treat an enlarged prostate. It consists of the removal through the urethra of the inner layer of the prostate by applying an electric current. The specialists remove tissue which is then analyzed in order to discard the existence of cancerous cells.

After the intervention, it is necessary to place a urinary catheter for a few days aimed to control bleeding, but also allowing to perform bladder washout to prevent a clot from clogging it.

Transurethral incision of the prostate (TUIP):

TUIP is a procedure for patients with moderate to severe symptoms, despite the small size of the prostate. In order to reduce the obstruction that the prostate causes in the urethra, specialists perform one or many incisions in the gland, the prostatic capsule and the bladder neck. This allows enlarging the diameter of the urethra.

Transvesical prostatic adenomectomy

Transvesical prostatic adenomectomy is an “open-sky” surgical procedure for cases where the volume of the prostate is too big and it is not possible to have a TURP. It is also for cases of presence of stones in the bladder of considerable size. The risk of complications in this surgical procedure is higher since it is more invasive.

Prostate laser surgery

There are other innovative techniques similar to TURP, but they use holmium, green, diode, or thulium laser to vaporize prostate tissue.

In this way, the risk of bleeding is minimized. However, it is worth mentioning that some studies indicate the effectiveness of this technique is less as the size of the prostate increases and that, when it is very large, reoperation may be necessary.