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Is water vapor thermal therapy safe and feasible in elderly and frail men? The Italian experience

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Abstract

Purpose

In recent years, water vapor thermal therapy (WVTT) has spread as minimally invasive technique in lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia treatment. Even if its safety and feasibility have been largely proved in young men, nobody has proved the same feasibility and safety in the elderly (men older than 75 years old). Our aim is to compare WVTT safety outcomes in men older than 75 with younger men.

Methods

We prospectively collected data on men who underwent water vapor thermal therapy from 2019. We compared data on operative time, number of injections, intra-operative and post-operative complications, reinterventions rate.

Results

We enrolled 426 patients; among these, 60 were older than 75 years old, 366 were younger. Our cohorts of patients had similar results in terms of intra-operative and post-operative complications. Operative time accounts about 11 min for both groups (p = 0.535), total number of injections was seven for young men and eight for elderly (p = 0.314). We found no intra-operative complications in elderly men group and only one in the younger group (p = 0.678), while five younger men underwent clot retention, and two elderly men experienced this complication (p = 0.239). Only one transfusion occurred in the elderly group. No differences between groups occurred in terms of length of stay, post-operative urinary retention and reintervention rate, while catheterization time was longer in the elderly men.

Conclusion

WVTT is a safe procedure in elderly patients with comparable intra-operative and post-operative complication rate in comparison with younger patients.

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Data availability

The raw data are available upon reasonable and motivated request.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Antonio Minore, Rocco Papalia & Roberto Mario Scarpa

  2. Department of Urology, “Hesperia Hospital”, and CURE Group, Modena, Italy

    Simone Morselli, Stefano Toso, Giovanni Ferrari & Luca Cindolo

  3. Department of Urology, Desio Hospital, Desio, Italy

    Francesco Franzoso

  4. Department of Urology, S. Maria Degli Angeli Hospital, Pordenone, Italy

    Daniele Maruzzi

  5. Department of Urology, Michele e Pietro Ferrero Hospital, Alba-Bra, Italy

    Francesco Varvello

  6. Department of Urology, Careggi Hospital, University of Florence, San Luca Nuovo, Florence, Italy

    Giampaolo Siena

  7. Department of Urology, Levante Ligure Hospital, La Spezia, Italy

    Enrico Conti

  8. Department of Urology, AORN Ospedali dei Colli-Monaldi Hospital, Naples, Italy

    Francesco Uricchio & Raffaele Balsamo

  9. Department of Urology, “Villa Stuart” Private Hospital, Rome, Italy

    Luca Cindolo

Authors
  1. Antonio Minore
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  2. Simone Morselli
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  3. Francesco Franzoso
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  4. Daniele Maruzzi
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  5. Francesco Varvello
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  6. Stefano Toso
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  7. Giovanni Ferrari
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  8. Giampaolo Siena
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  9. Enrico Conti
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  10. Rocco Papalia
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  11. Francesco Uricchio
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  12. Raffaele Balsamo
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  13. Roberto Mario Scarpa
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  14. Luca Cindolo
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Contributions

AM: data collection, manuscript writing. SM: data analysis, manuscript writing. FF: data collection. DM: data collection. FV: data collection. ST: data collection. GF: project development. GS: project development, data collection. EC: data collection. RP: project development. FU: project development. Balsamo R: project development, data collection. RMS: project development, manuscript supervision. LC: project development, data analysis, manuscript supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luca Cindolo.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing financial interests and no other conflict of interests to disclose.

Research involving human and animal participants

The research involves human participants but not animals.

Ethical approval

To proceed with the study, ethical appraisal was obtained for the current study (Ref AOC-0020489-2022). Data sharing between centers was conducted according to EU privacy regulations, with anonymized data to safeguard patients’ privacy.

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Minore, A., Morselli, S., Franzoso, F. et al. Is water vapor thermal therapy safe and feasible in elderly and frail men? The Italian experience. World J Urol 42, 60 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00345-023-04762-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00345-023-04762-9

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