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Boone Health Center hopes new treatment for enlarged prostate will encourage men to seek treatment

The Boone Health Nifong Medical Plaza Building is pictured on a sunny day. There is a tree in front of the building, and several signs that say "Boone Health Nifong Medical Plaza"
Anna Spidel
/
KBIA
Boone Health is now the first medical facility in mid-Missouri to offer a less invasive treatment for enlarged prostate glands.

Boone Health is now the first medical facility in mid-Missouri to offer a less invasive treatment for enlarged prostate glands, or benign prostatic hyperplasia. Aquablation Therapy, a relatively new treatment method, uses ultrasounds and a robotic-assisted system to remove prostate tissue with a pressurized, heat-free water jet.

Dr. Phillip Fish of Urology Associates of Central Missouri said other treatments for benign prostatic hyperplasia sometimes require incisions and take up to two hours of surgical time, but Aquablation Therapy usually takes 40 minutes. This means men can save on both anesthesia and recovery time. The technology is 99% effective in returning sexual and urinary function to men, according to Fish.

“I’ve had patients that said they couldn't go to see their grandson play basketball because they couldn't sit still and not go the bathroom every 20 minutes,” said Fish, who is one of two doctors at Boone Health approved to give the surgery. “The hope is that those guys don't have to suffer like that anymore.”

According to Yale Medicine, half of men aged 51-60 deal with an enlarged prostate, and the number jumps to 80% in men over 80.

Aquablation Therapy also shows more long-term success than existing procedures that frequently lead to urinary leakage and sexual dysfunction, according to Fish. Five years after their initial surgery, Boone Health says men typically report satisfaction.

Fish said he hopes the treatment’s higher effectiveness, in addition to its non-invasive nature, will encourage men who have been hesitant to seek treatment because of the common side effects.

“Most men, to some degree, are going to have some enlargement, and some of them are bothered by those symptoms and seek care for it,” he said. “But a lot probably just think that it's not worth the risks associated with it, so they kind of suffer in silence.”

Prior to offering this treatment method, Fish said sometimes he'd referred patients to St. Louis or Kansas City for the less invasive treatment. Last October, Mercy Hospital in St. Louis implemented Aquablation Therapy in response to high demand from patients.

“We eased into it, you know, and quickly adopted it as our mainstay of treatment,” said Mercy Hospital urologist Dr. Greg McLennan. “It is something we do frequently. Now we have men coming from all over the state seeking us out to do it.”

Though McLennan likes to fit treatment to each patient’s needs, he said Aquablation Therapy is popular at Mercy Hospital because it allows doctors to personally design the surgical treatment.

“It's kind of the state-of-the-art, where things are going. It's a refined way of doing an old-fashioned surgery,” he said, explaining that treatment for enlarged prostates has existed for over a century.

Boone Health will host a webinar about the procedure on Wednesday at 6:30 pm. Anyone interested in attending can register online at https://boone.pub/at-webinar.

Lilley Halloran is majoring in journalism and constitutional democracy at the University of Missouri, with minors in political science and history. She is a reporter for KBIA, and has previously completed two internships with St. Louis Public Radio.
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