MEDICATION FOR BPH

March 30th, 2009

From a medical standpoint, most of the drugs used to treat BPH are still very new. There have been no long-term studies of how well they work, and how they compare to surgical treatments for BPH. When a patient with BPH really needs treatment, surgery is still the option most urologists prefer, for several reasons. One is that pills must be taken daily; their effect ends soon after you stop taking them, and a prescription might well mean taking these pills for life. Also, it may take weeks on medication before any improvement is noticeable. The TUR procedure, particularly, has faster and more effective results than any medications for BPH currently available. Nonetheless, because surgery is not an option for all men—and because many men have symptoms that are annoying but not severe enough to warrant surgery—the availability of drugs means more treatment alternatives than ever before. And perhaps just knowing there’s something out there besides surgery will encourage some men who until now have been reluctant to seek help for their symptoms.

Drugs currently being developed and used to treat BPH attack the problem in two ways: One strategy is targeted at shrinking the prostate by interfering with the hormones that cause certain prostate cells to enlarge and accumulate. The other is aimed at keeping the prostate muscle tissue from tightening around the urethra.