A butterfly implant to treat prostate trouble
An iMPlAnT shaped like a butterfly could help millions of men with enlarged prostates. The metal device, roughly the size of a 10p coin, works by forcing swollen prostate tissue away from the walls of the urethra — the tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the body.
This reduces pressure on the walls of the urethra so that it opens up, helping men go to the loo. it could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), which affects an estimated 2.5 million men in the UK.
The prostate is a walnut-shaped gland surround room ing the urethra which produces components of semen. At different stages in a man’s life, it grows — first during puberty and then from the age of 25 until, in many cases, the prostate presses on the urethra.
The first sign of BPH is usually trouble passing urine. Untreated, it can cause kidney damage or bladder stones and seriously affect quality of life. Treatment often involves drugs, but they can have sideeffects. Around 25,000 men a year have surgery to correct the problem. However, this carries a risk of impotence and urinary incontinence, as surgery targets areas full of nerves that control these functions.
The new Butterfly Medical device could be an effective surgery-free option. With the patient under sedation, doctors insert a catheter — a thin plastic tube — through the urethra and feed a thin wire connected to the butterfly implant through it.
The implant is made from nitinol, a ‘memory metal’ which at temperature can be easily compressed to fit through a catheter, but at body temperature expands back to its original shape.
Using a camera, the collapsed implant is navigated down the urethra and fixed into position in the area squeezed by the swollen prostate.
When the device is released, it springs back to its ‘open’ position — like a butterfly with its wings spread — and instantly prises open the urethra so urine can flow freely once more.
The procedure takes around ten minutes and the gadget is held in place by the pressure it applies to the urethra wall.
it is designed to remain there permanently, but can be removed under local anaesthetic if necessary.
A clinical trial involving 30 men with BPH is under way at four hospitals in israel. Each man will be fitted with the implant and monitored for at least a year. The results are due next year.
The device has been granted approval in the UK, meaning that it complies with health and safety regulations, and could be rolled out across the nHS and privately in the coming months.
Jeremy Ockrim, a consultant urological surgeon at University College Hospital in london, says similar devices have made some difference in the past, but they failed to match the success rates of conventional surgery.
‘i would recommend something like this to my patients if they were not suitable for, or able to withstand, conventional surgery,’ he adds.