Early experience of prostatic balloon catheter and urological spiral for benign prostatic hyperplasia

Jeong, Seung Hwa; Bahk, Jong Yoon

Abstract

Between January 1989 and July 1990, nonsurgical managements were tried in 9 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia who were with a high surgical risk or didn`t want an operation. The prostatic balloon catheters were used in 3 patients and the urological spirals in 6 patients. They were followed with clinical evaluations, urine cultures and urine flow rates at 2 and 6 weeks. All procedures were done under the local anesthesia, except one spinal anesthesia. In the prostatic balloon catheter group, all three patients had recurrent voiding symptoms at 2, 3 and 9 months after prostatic balloon dilatation, respectively. In the urological spiral group, one procedure failed due to upward migration of the spiral into the bladder. In the remaining 5 patients, it has worked well up to 11 months after the procedure. Despite of some improvements in subjective voiding symptoms after procedure, there was no significant difference between before and after the procedure in maximum flow rate and total voided volume. Our results suggest that this modality, especially the urological spiral, can be a useful alternative to an operation in selected patients with an increased surgical risk.