New treatment
The hospital said it recently treated an 80-year-old man with diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. After heart specialists and anaesthetists cleared him for treatment, he underwent the procedure and left hospital within 36 hours and removed the catheter in 10 days. Chennai: Kauvery Hospital on Radial Road has introduced a treatment that uses steam to shrink enlarged prostate tissue without surgically removing it, the hospital said.
Symptoms improve over the following months, the hospital said. Uro-oncologist Dr Shivraj Barathkumar said the steam treatment takes about three to five minutes and causes little blood loss. Called Rezūm, the procedure offers an alternative to conventional surgery for non-cancerous prostate enlargement. The condition can cause frequent urination, difficulty emptying the bladder or an inability to pass urine. For the new treatment, doctors pass a thin instrument through the urethra, the passage that carries urine out of the body. A fine needle delivers steam into the enlarged tissue. The heat destroys the targeted tissue, which the body gradually absorbs. He had been unable to pass urine and needed a catheter, a tube that drains the bladder.