PROSTATE CANCERE AWARENESS WEEK: NEW TREATMENT AVAILABLE LOCALLY TO EASE PROSTATE PROBLEMS

A procedure newly available locally is helping relieve men of symptoms associated with enlarged prostate without surgery or drugs.

"The first two patients to undergo the treatment are both quite happy," said Dr. Paul D. Thompson, a urologist with Cape Girardeau Urology Associates. "They felt quite excited that they could get off medication and avoid an operative procedure."

The new procedure uses the Targis System, a non-surgical treatment that uses a catheter to deliver targeted, microwave-generated heat to treat enlarged prostate, known medically as benign prostatic hyperplasia. The high temperatures created by the microwave shrinks the prostate. Simultaneously, the catheter cools and protects the adjacent urethra and healthy tissue.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a non-cancerous form of prostate disease. It causes the prostate gland to enlarge, squeezing the urethra and causing urination problems. It effects more than 6 million men over the age of 55 nationwide.

Statistics show that 50 percent of men over age 50 and 75 percent of men over age 60 have symptoms of BPH. Those symptoms include the inability to completely empty the bladder, frequent or painful urination, need to get up frequently at night to urinate, weak or interrupted urine stream, incontinence and difficulty urinating.

"Despite the fact that enlarged prostate is the most common health problem that men experience, awareness of the condition is low," Thompson said.

He said symptoms often come on so slowly that men may not even realize there is a problem.

"They may just think it's normal to have to get up three or four times during the night to urinate," Thompson said. "They just get used to the symptoms."

In fact, most men only come in because their wives make them, he said.

Traditional treatment of enlarged prostate involves taking drugs, which can cause uncomfortable side effects in some men, or surgery, which requires anesthesia and an overnight hospital stay and holds risks of complications like bleeding and impotence.

The Targis System treatment uses only local anesthetic and is done in an outpatient setting.

Thompson said the treatment was approved by the FDA in 1997 and has been available in St. Louis. But in the last year, newer, more effective machines have become available, and that is what is offered now at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

"The risk of complications are much lower with the new treatment," Thompson said. "The risks of bleeding, impotence and incontinence are minimal if not nonexistent."