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Long-term effects of transurethral microwave thermotherapy
Takashi Ohigashi1, Shiro Baba, Takahiro Ohki
1Department of Urology, School of Medicine, Keio University, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan. ohigashi@sc.itc.keio.ac.jp
Background:
To identify the clinical valuables predicting a favorable outcome after transurethral microwave thermotherapy (TUMT) of the prostate with Prostatron.
Methods:
One hundred and two patients with lower urinary symptoms were treated with TUMT using a Prostatron device with the low-energy protocol (Prostasoft version 2.0 J). The pre-operative subjective score and objective voiding parameters were collected from the medical record. To test the differences in the risk of the necessity for additional treatments for several subgroups, Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and log-rank tests were used.
Results:
The Kaplan-Meier analyses showed that 67% of the patients received additional treatment within five years. The median period for receiving additional treatment was 37 months. The patients with a peak flow rate greater than 6.5 mL per second, with a urethral length less than 40 mm, or with an age over 64 years all demonstrated a significantly longer period before receiving additional treatment, when compared with their counterparts. These three factors were also significant in multivariate analysis to predict the long-term outcome.
Conclusions:
Overall durability of TUMT was limited. Aged patients with a relatively high peak flow rate or with a short prostatic urethral length resulted in lower risk of receiving additional treatments after TUMT.