[Prostatic enucleation with holmium laser]

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) affects a growing percentage of males over the age of 40 years, increasing with age. Currently, we have a new therapeutic tool available: the holmium laser.

We retrospectively collected data of 300 patients undergoing holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP) in our center.

The results are: mean hospital stay 1.8 days (range 1-15 days, median 1.8); mean bladder catheter time 30.6 hours (range 12-312, median 30.3), total operative room time 75 minutes (range 38-150, median 71), maximal flow rate at six months 24.7 ml/sec. and 23.9 ml/sec. at 12 months. Surgical performance, number of grams resected per minute, is 0.48 for the whole group. We observed a variation in data from the first 20 cases, with worse results in this group.

In our opinion holmium laser enucleation is an adequate method that the guarantees optimal results, comparable to those obtained with classic endoscopic and open surgical techniques, with a low rate of complications, which benefits the patient by diminishing the need for transfusions, catheterization time, and hospital stay; conversely, it has a learning curve of around 20 procedures, which may be associated with complications that may discourage the surgeon and stop the project of technique implementation in a center, having easy, accessible, established alternative procedures.