Urolift as a BPH surgical treatment

Dr. Kevin Zorn, MD, FRCPC, Urologist

Duration: 2 minutes and 12 seconds

Urolift is a unique prostate treatment. It was one of the first MIST or minimally invasive surgical procedures in the fact that it's a stapling or tacking of the prostate. A simple analogy may be that, ‘my curtains are closed, let's pull the curtains open’. You take one side and pin it against the capsule and do the same on the other side to create a mechanical compression of the spongy prostate tissue.

It's a rigid system scope that comes into the bladder and then we position every one centimeter or so to compress, using metal scope with our device, we then place a needle that tracks through the prostate, anchors and like a grappling hook on the outside of the prostate and then using advancements of the scope generating tension of the suture, and then placing a secondary clip to compress the tissue. So you do this on both sides of the prostate and keep backing up one centimeter at a time. And on average, there's between four and six sutures that are instantaneously creating an opening of the prostate with very little bleeding and no catheterization. And this procedure has very little pain. The downside is that you may need more than four to six sutures. And we can't really address for those patients with a median lobe. So if you have this big circular ball that's obstructing the bladder, this procedure doesn't address that and other minimally invasive techniques may be needed.

The large benefit to the Urolift system is that there is no impact on ejaculation or sexual function. It is a very quick procedure under a local anesthesia that gives results immediately with very little downtime, no catheterization, and most importantly instant benefits of the urinary stream.

We've seen in the literature that suggests that after a year lift procedure between 10 and 15% of men may require subsequent BPH treatments. For more information on BPH therapies and evaluation speak to your family physician to get consultation to your local urologist.

Presenter: Dr. Kevin Zorn, Urologist, Montreal, QC

Local Practitioners: Urologist