UHDB offering innovative treatment for benign prostate enlargement
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton is now offering patients an innovative, non-surgical option for the treatment of benign prostatic enlargement.
The Trust is one of the leading providers of prostate artery embolisation in the East Midlands. The procedure is carried out as a day-case under local anaesthetic which involves making a small cut of less than 1cm in the groin, before inserting a catheter into the groin artery. The catheter is guided through the blood vessels to get to the arteries supplying the prostate, where tiny plastic particles are then injected, which cut off the blood supply to the prostate. With no blood supply, the prostate then slowly shrinks over the course of 10-12 weeks, easing the symptoms of an enlarged prostate gradually.
The treatment was approved by NICE in April 2018, and Dr Waleed Al-Obaydi, Consultant Interventional Radiologist at UHDB, has been working for the past year to introduce the treatment at UHDB, and the first patients have now been booked in.
Dr Al-Obaydi said: “It’s fantastic news to be able to offer this treatment to patients”.
“Patients are admitted in the morning to the radiology department before having local anaesthetic for the procedure, which usually take about two hours. Then, patients are sent to a day case ward to recover for a few hours before being sent home on the same day.
“There are so many benefits to the patient with this treatment. The recovery time after the procedure is minimal and there should be no impact on the patient’s sexual function, which can happen as a result of having surgery. It is also a more proven method in terms of its effectiveness as opposed to treating it with medication, which may or may not work for some patients.”
Benign prostatic enlargement affects more than one third of men over 50 and 80 per cent of men over 70. Although it is not life-threatening, an enlarged prostate can press and affect the ability to pass urine and may cause men to need to take frequent trips to the toilet.
Mild symptoms can be controlled by drugs, but they can cause side-effects such as loss of sexual function, while surgery poses risks such as incontinence, the loss of sexual function and fertility issues, along with needing a general anaesthetic and an over-night stay in hospital.
Patients are offered embolisation treatment following a CT to discover if the blood supply to the prostate is adequate. If it is, The Intervention Radiologist will go through the procedure with the patient on the same day and offer them procedure appointments to save patients return visits.