Hi everyone,

I am new here and writing this for my father who is 80 years of age and has BPH with prostate 103 grams. Doctor has suggested to go for TURP.

Is TURP good to go at the age of 80?

Please advise.

Thanks Andrew.

Yes, the doctor is saying that it is fine to have the surgery but just wanted to check if any of our esteemed members here has undergone it at the said age.

Post Edited (Abhinav_Malhotra) : 2/12/2019 11:33:51 AM (GMT-7)

I've had a TURP, and at 80, and in good health, I don't think I'd sign up for one. There are other, less invasive options. PAE is one interesting option. https://www.radiology.ca/article/prostate-surgery-there-alternative-turp-0

GreenLight Laser PVP (Photoselective Vaporization of the Prostate) is another possible option. It's a procedure used in the treatment of (BPH), and it doesn't have to be called GreenLight (a marketing term).

According to Johns Hopkins Health alerts, a recent study found that HoLEP has better long-term results than TURP. For the study, researchers followed up with 31 of 61 men who had participated in an earlier evaluation that compared HoLEP vs TURP. Fourteen of the men in the follow-up study had been treated with HoLEP and seventeen with TURP.

The HoLEP procedure is considered a minimally invasive alternative to TURP. Men who received HoLEP had less time using a catheter and reported shorter hospital stays, minimal blood loss, and fewer requirements to repeat the procedure compared to TURP. Side effects and symptoms after the first year were similar between the two study groups, and both procedures caused retrograde ejaculation, or dry climax.

So there very well may be better choices, especially for an 80 year old man, Do some research and be sure to research your doctor or surgeon’s level of training and experience before having any procedure. I's important to be certain you thoroughly understand the potential benefits and risks of any procedure. For what it's worth, many, including me, consider TURP to be a rather barbaric prostate rotor-rooter scoop procedure. It's use has dramatically fallen in recent years.

Welcome to HW, and good luck helping your father.

It is possible for BPH to be responsible for that. Hopefully the biopsy report will confirm that for you.

Also, the TURP will cause the PSA to be high for a while. It will take some time for that to come back down.

Do keep us updated,
Andrew

An important thing to note as well, is that if the pathology does come back with PC, it will most likely be low grade--and at 80, unlikely to be more than an irritant. You'll have him around for a while, and he'll likely die of something else.

Where are you located?

PSA due to PC does not come down with antibiotics. If his PSA falls with antibiotics that's a clear sign that the PSA is due to infection and not PC.

PC is a very slow growing cancer and unlike to appear with in a year. However, biopsies do sometimes miss PC.

Even with that, at 80, and at his PSA, it's unlikely they will find anything that needs more treatment and likely all he needed was the TURP.

Andrew

Hi dear members,

I have a question please.

As I mentioned the last time, we had the reports of the biopsy for the prostate sample taken during the prostate surgery.

The report was negative(with the grace of god).

We had the PSA test done about a fortnight ago(about 4 months after the surgery) but the PSA is still around 10.

Please advise me as the PSA did not come down.

Yes 142.

That is what I meant that it did not come down to the extent that I was expecting.

I read about this a lot and concluded that after the surgery it comes down between 0.1-0.5, so that is the cause of my worry.

Thank you so much, 142.

I will get the PSA done again in a month and let you all know about the result(Hope it lowers down).

An interesting side note...
I had a TURP done 4 yrs ago at age 54. Last month, I had another set of scans done, and the bone scan interpreter thought I had my prostate surgically removed, which I had not. My MO explained that the TURP had removed so much of my prostate, that the reader mistook it for having been done as a surgical choice. I was naturally worried about such a bad misreading and even was concerned that the doctor was maybe not looking at the right scans. I've had probably 5 sets of scans after the TURP and none had ever made that misreading before.