Transurethral prostatic tissue ablation via a single needle delivery system: initial experience with radio-frequency energy and ethanol.

We report an initial clinical experience to evaluate the safety and efficacy of outpatient prostatic ablation for the treatment of symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) using local anesthesia (OPAL) with radio-frequency energy and intraprostatic absolute ethanol injection (EI). Twenty-three patients were treated with OPAL and five patients were treated with EI. Pre-operative data for all patients included international prostate symptom score (IPSS), quality of life score (QL), maximum flow rate (Q(max)), and post void residual determination. Prostate specific antigen (PSA) and transrectal ultrasound prostate volume determination were also done for EI patients. Needle deployment into the prostate was carried out at the 2, 4, 8 and 10 o'clock positions for lateral lobe hyperplasia and the 6 o'clock position for middle lobe hyperplasia. IPSS, QL, Q(max) and post void residual data were collected at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months post procedure. Both procedures resulted in statistically significant reductions of IPSS and QL. Trends towards improvement were seen both for Q(max) and post void residual, with Q(max) significantly improved after OPAL. Among EI patients, the prostate volume was reduced at 6 months post treatment to 37.2+/-17.9 g from 53.0+/-19.0 g (P=0.03) preoperatively. OPAL was safe but suffered from a high re-treatment rate. EI demonstrated encouraging results with regards to safety, symptom improvement and prostate volume reduction.