Effects of Transurethral Electrovaporization on Serum Electrolyte, Osmolality and Blood Loss

Ro, Dong Woo; Kim, Kap Byung; Kim, Duk Youn; Park, Jae Sin; Kim, Bong Il

Abstract

PURPOSE: We did electrovaporization to reduce the absorbed volume of irrigant and bleeding during TURP, and compared the effects on intraoperative and postoperative serum electrolyte, osmolality, and blood loss between this method and the classic TURP. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Of the 45 BPH patients, 21 patients underwent TURP (Group l), while the other 24 patients were electrovaporized with vaportrode(Group ll). They were followed preoperatively, 30 min intraoperatively, immediate postoperatively, 6 hours and 24 hours postoperatively with measurements of serum sodium, potassium, glucose and BUN. The amount of absorbed irrigant, serum osmolality, effective osmolality, blood loss were calculated and compared between the two groups. RESULTS: Although the group ll showed a longer operation time and used a larger amount of irrigant than the group l, there was not a significant difference in the amount of blood loss between the two groups and lesser amount of irrigant was absorbed than the group l. There was not a significant decrease in postoperative serum Hb and Hct level compared with preoperative level in the group ll. Serum sodium level were significantly decreased during postoperative period every patients in the group l. The serum osmolality and effective osmolality levels were significantly decreased postoperatively as compared with the preoperative levels in the group l, but were not in the group ll.
CONCLUSIONS
These results show that electrovaporization may be the effective method in preventing complications such as hyponatremia and hypoosmolality during perioperative period. This method may also be helpful in reducing blood loss.