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| GREENLIGHT LASER PVP - MINIMALLY INVASIVE TREATMENT FOR BENIGN PROSTATIC HYPERPLASIA (BPH) |
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You’re getting up four times a night or loitering over urinals for what seems like an eternity. You feel like your bladder is never completely empty. You have to push or strain to urinate. You’re experiencing pain or burning when you urinate. Your urologist has told you that your PSA levels are normal and the culprit isn’t prostate cancer. But there is something wrong and you aren’t alone. Roughly half of all men over sixty will develop the prostate condition you’ve been diagnosed with, a condition that leads to the difficulties with urination you’ve been experiencing. You’re suffering from an enlarged prostate, a condition otherwise known as benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH. Unfortunately, benign prostatic hyperplasia is simply a consequence of aging. Every year, approximately 2 million men in the U.S. are treated for BPH. |
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In fact, 40% of men in their 50s and 90% of men in their 80s, will experience the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia. The growth is benign, but it will impede the urethra and result in difficult, slow or incomplete urinary function. That means the issues won’t be life and death, not that you won’t have an important decision to make. Depending on its severity, BPH can be treated with alpha-blockers such as terazocin or doxasacine, with procedures ranging from transurethral resection surgery and thermodilation to prostatron, with full-blown open surgery or with a relatively new procedure …photoselective vaporization of the prostate or PVP.
Performed with a remarkable GreenLight Laser System, photoselective vaporization can free patients from the urinary problems associated with BPH without compromising their lifestyle or health, essentially giving them the green light to live life without a pill a day compromise.
The GreenLight Laser Vaporizes and Precisely Removes Enlarged Prostate Tissues
GreenLight laser treatment of the prostate is the newest, minimally invasive surgical technique for combating benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). PVP offers patients both the immediate symptom relief and the dramatic flow improvements of the popular standard procedure known as transurethral resection of the prostate (or TURP) and the fast operative and recovery times, minimal side effects and catheter-free post op of other minimally invasive techniques. Photoselective prostate vaporization is performed, using a specially designed green-laser light source and fiber optic delivery system, in an outpatient setting, usually a surgical center or hospital.
During the procedure, the GreenLight laser surgical system, delivers laser light pulses via a specially designed fiber optic device inserted through a standard cystoscope. The laser light pulses are then directed toward the enlarged prostate tissues. The green-laser quickly and accurately vaporizes the prostatic obstruction – removing the enlarged portions of the prostate without causing significant bleeding. The average operative time is typically under sixty-minutes and once the procedure has been completed, most patients experience immediate symptom relief and a dramatic improvement in symptoms such as urinary flow rate and bladder emptying. More importantly, studies have indicated that those dramatic symptomological improvements are durable, for approximately a five-year follow-on period.
No other treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) has been shown to offer that combination of immediate and long-lasting symptom relief while providing significant uroflow results and resulting in minimal side effects … if any. The other minimally invasive treatment options for benign prostatic hyperplasia (Transurethral Microwave Thermotherapy or TUMT and Transurethral Needle Ablation or TUNA) require compromises, in one form or another. In terms of overall efficacy, treatment durability or risk of potential postoperative complications. The advent of photoselective vaporization has done away with those compromises, patient’s symptoms can now be significantly reduced and their flow rates considerably improved with a safe, simple and effective treatment. By contrast, PVP is a fast, outpatient procedure that offers patients’ symptom relief and a positive uroflowometry outcome.
GreenLight Laser Photoselective Vaporization of the Prostate (PVP) - Benefits
- BPH is diagnosed in roughly 40% of men in their 50s and in 90% of men in their 80s.
- PVP patients are typically able to resume low-stress activity within 2 to 3 days.
- Patients are usually able to return to a vigorous activity level within 4 to 6 weeks.
- Postoperative complications from PVP are infrequent and mild when they do occur.
- 30% of PVP patients do not need a postoperative catheter.
- PVP has not been shown to pose a risk of postoperative impotence.
- PVP has been shown to reduce the occurrence of retrograde ejaculation in patients.
- The re-operation rate with PVP, over 5 years, is lower than that of other treatments.
- Photoselective vaporization of the prostate (or GreenLight Laser PVP) is an outpatient surgical procedure emerging as a desirable alternative to the traditional surgical answers to BPH.
More importantly, photoselective vaporization of the prostate offers patients long-term benefits …Even 5 years out; patients who’ve undergone GreenLight Laser PVP continue to experience persistent improvement of their urinary flow rates and fewer symptoms of urinary obstruction. PVP really is that safe and effective.
If You’re a Candidate for TURP, TUNA or TUMT …You’re a Candidate for PVP
If you’re a patient with a bladder outlet obstruction due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and you’re a candidate for older minimally invasive procedures such as transurethral microwave thermotherapy, transurethral needle ablation or for surgical procedures such as transurethral resection of the prostate (or TURP) you’re a candidate for GreenLight Laser PVP. It really is that simple. However, patients who’ve been diagnosed with obstructive prostate glands larger than “250 cm3” typically aren’t suitable candidates for GreenLight PVP or for standard transurethral surgical solutions to BPH. They are commonly treated using an open surgical procedure.
It’s also worth noting that patients suffering from neurogenic bladder disorders (or detrusor over activity) in addition to BPH are more likely than others to experience urinary control problems after being treated with photoselective vaporization, just as they would following transurethral resection. Therefore, they generally aren’t considered candidates for either procedure.
For more information on BHP or GreenLight Laser PVP, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
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