The regular use of finasteride before transurethral laser resection of the prostate helps reduce bleeding

To investigate the effect of preoperative administration of finasteride on intraoperative bleeding during transurethral laser resection of the prostate. We retrospectively analyzed 120 patients who underwent transurethral laser resection of the prostate. Patients were divided into two groups based on whether finasteride was used (n = 60) or not (n = 60). The following parameters were collected: age, height, weight and body mass index (BMI), international prostate symptom score (IPSS), quality of life (QoL) score, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), prostate volume, operation time, hospital stay, continuous bladder irrigation (CBI); catheterization duration, re-catheterization, preoperative and postoperative hemoglobin concentrations, preoperative and postoperative serum sodium concentrations, postoperative urinary tract infection (UTI) rate, hospitalization costs. We compared the two groups using Student's t test, Mann-Whitney U test and χ2 test for quantitative and categorical variables, respectively. A linear regression model was employed to identify predictive factors of transurethral laser resection of the prostate. Compared with the non-finasteride group, the finasteride group had a lower bleeding level (Δ Hemoglobin 2.5 g/L vs. 7 g/L, p = 0.025), and lower hospitalization costs (21.62 thousand Yuan vs. 23.11 thousand Yuan, p = 0.001). In multivariate analyses, the regular use of finasteride (r=-0.304, p = 0.001) was the independent predictive factor of intraoperative bleeding during transurethral laser resection of the prostate. The regular use of finasteride before transurethral laser resection of the prostate helps to reduce intraoperative bleeding level.