In recent years, water vapor thermal therapy (WVTT) has spread as minimally invasive technique in lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia treatment. Even if its safety and feasibility have been largely proved in young men, nobody has proved the same feasibility and safety in the elderly (men older than 75 years old). Our aim is to compare WVTT safety outcomes in men older than 75 with younger men.
We prospectively collected data on men who underwent water vapor thermal therapy from 2019. We compared data on operative time, number of injections, intra-operative and post-operative complications, reinterventions rate.
We enrolled 426 patients; among these, 60 were older than 75 years old, 366 were younger. Our cohorts of patients had similar results in terms of intra-operative and post-operative complications. Operative time accounts about 11 min for both groups (p = 0.535), total number of injections was seven for young men and eight for elderly (p = 0.314). We found no intra-operative complications in elderly men group and only one in the younger group (p = 0.678), while five younger men underwent clot retention, and two elderly men experienced this complication (p = 0.239). Only one transfusion occurred in the elderly group. No differences between groups occurred in terms of length of stay, post-operative urinary retention and reintervention rate, while catheterization time was longer in the elderly men.
WVTT is a safe procedure in elderly patients with comparable intra-operative and post-operative complication rate in comparison with younger patients.
World journal of urology. 2024 Jan 27*** epublish ***
Antonio Minore, Simone Morselli, Francesco Franzoso, Daniele Maruzzi, Francesco Varvello, Stefano Toso, Giovanni Ferrari, Giampaolo Siena, Enrico Conti, Rocco Papalia, Francesco Uricchio, Raffaele Balsamo, Roberto Mario Scarpa, Luca Cindolo
Department of Urology, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy., Department of Urology, "Hesperia Hospital", and CURE Group, Modena, Italy., Department of Urology, Desio Hospital, Desio, Italy., Department of Urology, S. Maria Degli Angeli Hospital, Pordenone, Italy., Department of Urology, Michele e Pietro Ferrero Hospital, Alba-Bra, Italy., Department of Urology, Careggi Hospital, University of Florence, San Luca Nuovo, Florence, Italy., Department of Urology, Levante Ligure Hospital, La Spezia, Italy., Department of Urology, AORN Ospedali dei Colli-Monaldi Hospital, Naples, Italy., Department of Urology, "Hesperia Hospital", and CURE Group, Modena, Italy. .