Clinical outcomes of prostate artery embolization for management of benign prostate hyperplasia (prostate larger than 100 mL) with or without hematuria

Abstract

Background: In this study, we report 1-year follow-up clinical results of prostate artery embolization (PAE) in patients with glandular hematuria or acute urinary retention caused by a large prostate (over 100 mL).Methods: Twenty-one consecutive patients undergoing PAE from March 2018 to July 2020 were included in this retrospective study. Clinical follow-up was conducted for all patients 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the procedure. The outcome measures included the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), quality of life (QoL), peak urinary flow rate (Qmax), post-void residual (PVR), prostate volume, prostate-specific antigen, and complications. A p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Twenty-one patients with severe benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) with acute urinary retention or prostatic hematuria were enrolled in this study. Technical success rate was 90.5% (19/21), and unilateral PAE was done in 2/21 (9.5%) patients by pelvic vascular obliteration. In all patients, the mean IPSS, QoL score, Qmax, and PVR were significantly improved at 12 months post-PAE. The mean IPSS decreased from 26.1 to 12.1 points (p<0.05), mean QoL score decreased from 4.6 to 2.9 points (p<0.05), mean Qmax increased from 2.1 to 9.4 mL/s (p<0.05), and mean PVR decreased from 300.0 to 70.7 mL (p<0.05). The catheter was successfully removed from 19/21 patients and clinical success rate was 90.5%.Conclusions: PAE was an effective and safe treatment option for patients with BPH and very large prostates (>100 mL) and urinary retention or gross hematuria associated with BPH in men unfit for surgery.