The microwave delivery system allows application of microwave energy to the central zone causing coagulation necrosis of the tissue while preserving the urethral lining with a circulating coolant. This procedure results in an improvement in urinary symptoms over time as this tissue is sloughed, resorbed, and retracted in size. BPH may negatively affect a man s quality of life, which is often what causes him to seek treatment. However, it has a variable natural history.
Progression occurs in less than a third of patients.
Transurethral thermotherapy is a single sixty minute session that can be performed in an office, clinic or mobile unit without intravenous sedation, or spinal or general anesthesia, thereby reducing complications and treatment costs. Pain or discomfort management during thermotherapy, reported descriptively in these clinical trials, ranges from intraurethral lidocaine only to intravenous sedoanalgesia. Patient comfort management practices in the clinical setting continue to be disparate and dependent on the treatment environment. The prostate gland consists of a central gland, peripheral gland and transition zone which is adjacent to the urethra and approximates the central gland. The transition zone is the area where BPH usually develops.