Simple op to stop men going to the bathroom so often

RONALD Shaw, 79, a retired chief engineer, had a noninvasive procedure to treat his enlarged prostate which is as good as surgery, a new study has found. He spoke to SOPHIE GOODCHILD.

THE PATIENT

AROUND ten years ago, I noticed that I was needing the loo more frequently, but I was passing less urine.

I would get the urge to go, but the flow wasn’t as forceful and it felt like I wasn’t emptying my bladder completely.

Constantly getting up in the night left me tired and disturbed my partner, Linda.

I used to need the loo about ten times a day and three times at night.

In the day, I’d have to plan outings to ensure I was near a loo — otherwise, I’d get anxious.

I put up with it at first, but after a couple of years, I realised the symptoms weren’t getting better, so in 2009, I went to see my GP.

He said I had an enlarged prostate that was pressing on my urethra — the tube that takes urine out of the body.

This was slowing down the flow and making me want to go to the toilet more often. He put me on tamsulosin hydrochloride and dutasteride tablets to shrink my prostate, but I didn’t get any better and my doctor kept referring me to different specialists.

Surgery to remove part of the prostate was mentioned — but it came with a risk of impotence and incontinence, which put me off.

The thought of being unable to control my bladder at all was very concerning.

THEN 18 months ago, I read about prostate artery embolisation, which doesn’t involve surgery. A tube is fed from your groin to the arteries that supply blood to your prostate, and small plastic beads are deposited. These cut off the blood to the prostate and shrink the gland.

I contacted Southampton General Hospital, which was trialling it, and pushed to have it done. The only issue was my age.

The older you are, the more likely it is that your arteries are furred and rigid, and this could mean that bits of plaque (fat and calcium that clogs the arteries) break off when they feed the tube down.

Luckily, an X-ray of my arteries showed my plumbing was like a 60-year-old’s, so I had the procedure in January last year.

As it required only a local anaesthetic, I was awake for the whole two hours.

There was no discomfort, just a warm sensation when they put dye into my arteries to make them visible, and I was home within three hours.

It took about three months to notice any significant reduction in my visits to the loo. But a year on, I’m down to five times a day and once a night, and I no longer plan around a loo. We recently went on holiday and, on the seven-hour coach trip home, I didn’t need the loo once. Not having to worry any more is such a relief.

Last week, I went for a check-up scan and found my prostate has nearly halved in size.

THE SPECIALIST

DR NIGEL HACKING is a consultant interventional radiologist at University Hospital Southampton. THE prostate gland is normally the size of a walnut, but it can grow to the size of an apple. No one knows why exactly, but it’s thought constant exposure to the hormone testosterone over time is a factor.

A hormonal imbalance may also be a factor.

The prostate surrounds the urethra so, when it is enlarged, it can restrict the flow of urine.

And the pressure on the urethra and bladder can mean a man feels a sudden urge to pass urine as soon as the bladder starts to fill.

This can lead to accidents and disrupted sleep.

I’ve had patients who wake up 15 times a night and don’t sleep properly for months on end.

Lifestyle changes or taking medication can help, but the current gold-standard treatment involves surgery.

Each year, 450 men in Ireland and around 45,000 men in the UK have the transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) procedure, which involves cutting away part of the prostate with either a hot wire or a laser.

But it takes up to three months to fully recover, and there is also a risk of damage to nerves or muscles surrounding the bladder — which can lead to short-term urinary incontinence or impotence. It can also affect fertility, as semen can flow back into the bladder.

The new procedure, prostate artery embolisation, on the other hand, doesn’t affect sexual function and there’s no risk of incontinence because we don’t go anywhere near the bladder muscles.

We inject hundreds of plastic beads the size of grains of sand into two or three of the arteries that supply blood to the prostate.

Without this blood, the overgrown part shrinks.

This procedure also reduces the flow of testosterone.

After anaesthetising the groin, we inject dye, so we can see the prostate arteries, and insert a flexible guide wire with a hollow plastic sheath on top into the femoral artery.

A tiny tube is fed into this sheath until it reaches the arteries supplying the prostate gland.

Then, an even smaller 0.5 mm tube is pushed into these arteries and the beads are released.

We watch it all on a monitor to ensure the tiny beads go in the right place, as they will stay in position.

We’ve used beads and other similar materials for years and there’s no evidence this does any harm.

Patients may experience a deepseated ache for up to three days, but this can be easily managed with anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen.

Results of a study at St Louis Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal — which was presented at a Society of Interventional Radiology meeting in the US last week — show the procedure is as effective as surgery and also, that the benefits may last as long.

They had an 89% success rate six months after surgery and a 78% success rate beyond three years.

Only two patients in the sevenyear trial, involving 1,000 middleaged men, had side-effects.

In addition, men were able to continue their sex lives.

At our hospital, we’ve been taking part in a follow-up trial which is involving 203 patients at 17 centres.

The results are expected to be published later this year.

It is not a cure for an enlarged prostate and it may not be suitable for everyone.

You need to have relatively healthy arteries to begin with, and it is also not suitable for patients suffering with cancer or for patients who are in wheelchairs or for those who have paralysed bladders. THE procedure costs €5,750 privately.