Non-surgical treatment

Twenty years ago, most men with symptomatic benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) were given a treatment choice of either 'watch and wait' or surgery. Similar to the management of other medical conditions, with the development of effective and safe medical therapies, the emphasis now is on medical treatments rather than surgery, at least in the first instance. Like general surgeons managing peptic ulcer disease, urologists no longer rely on surgery as first-line treatment. The advent of H-2 antagonists followed by proton pump inhibitors has seen the number of partial gastrectomies and vagotomies performed plummet in recent years, In the same way, the introduction of alpha-blockers in the late 1970s, and later finasteride, has resulted in a sharp decline in the number of TURPs (transurethral resections of the prostate) performed.