Semi conductor lasers in the treatment of benign prostate pathologies

Treatment of benign prostate pathology often has no effect on the symptomatology of the patient. For this reason we used an infrared laser ray, of which the biophysical effects on tissue are well noted: stimulation of lymphatic drainage, pain reduction, microcirculation, trophism and tissue elasticity increase. The laser was used on the prostate via an endorectal probe that gave compactness and orthogonality to the ray that is transmitted along 5 optic fibres. Between January 1991 and January 1992 we treated, following a rigorous enforcement of the requirements of the inclusion protocol, 80 patients with ages ranging from 25 to 77 years. Of these 40 suffered from abacterial chronic prostatitis (ACP), and 40 from early symptomatic benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) with a prostate diameter of < 4 cm. The preliminary results (with a 3 month follow-up) were satisfactory especially regarding the subjective symptomatology: BPH 75%; ACP 85%. The advantages of this method are: good results in selected cases (follow-up still limited), complete harmlessness, high tolerability, possibility of repeating the treatment, excellent cost-benefit ratio. The limitations are: exclusion from the protocol of neurologic bladders, bladder stones, median lobe of the prostate and the progressive loss of efficiency with the growth of the prostatic diameter.