Pae

[KublaiKhan]

So I was recently reading about a new procedure that is still in its experimental stages which caught my attention. Prostatic artery embolization as a primary treatment for BPH. So far the studies have shown it to be as effective as a TURP without some of the surgical risks and has not shown sexual dysfunction to be a significant problem as with surgical treatment. What have you all heard about this? Was anyone else as excited as I was when they heard about it? Should I be as a potential future IR? It sounds quite similar to UFE and seems like it could be a great new procedure for IR docs. I just wonder how it will affect IR referrals from urology or if uro will latch on to it once it gets out of its preliminary days.

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[Gvataken]

Interesting concept. There were some posters at SIR about this. No level I evidence yet. Anecdotally one of my fellows said they performed this on one of their patients who had BPH and they did a rotational CT to confirm prostatic blush and then performed embolization. The patient did well with this and had a rapid recovery and his retention symptoms improved dramatically in a month's time. I look forward to hearing more about this procedure from others.

 

[Interchange]

I found this intriguing as well. The research on this is still somewhat embryonic, but nice articles from bidmc and portugal in jvir detailing preliminary experience. I think it warrants excitement, if for no other reasons than it is likely an excellent topic for continued research, and because it represents an enormous potential referral population. I'm always thrilled to read about novel procedures developed by IR.

 

[IRneuroIR]

Yes, this is most definitely an interesting emerging area for IR to assist with the treatment of a very common disease. Of course in the environment of EBM/best practices/CER, we will need to perform high-quality randomized-controlled studies to show the efficacy and safety as compared with existing medical and surgical treatments. I think this certainly could be the next "UFE" but we need to make sure we treat it in a similar scientific fashion so that the Urologists will ultimately have to acknowledge that it is a good option (similar to varicocele embolization and also similar to the ACOG Level A support of UFE).