UNC uses new, minimally invasive procedure to treat prostate issues

Health experts say more than half of men over age 50 experience benign prostate hyperplasia, which narrows the urethra so urine gets backed up into a person's bladder. Tom Grubbs, 71, began suffering the problem about two years ago.

"I was having to empty my bladder more and more," Grubbs said. The condition began to hurt his kidneys.

"It can cause difficulty getting started, frequent urination and getting up at night, and so it can really affect people's lifestyle," said Dr. Ari Isaacson, a interventional radiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Isaacson said medication is a first line treatment, but many men stop using it due to side effects. Then, there are different surgical options that also come with potential side effects including sexual dysfunction and incontinence.

A new outpatient procedure, though, was once only available in Europe and South America. It was approved in June 2017 by the FDA. Isaacson began offering the treatment, called prostatic artery embolization, four years earlier as part of clinical trials.

Isaacson uses a special procedure room with a robot arm machine that can position itself anywhere around the patient's body. The machine is aided by 3D imaging, which helps doctors guide a catheter through the groin to a prostate artery, where tiny hydragel beads are released.

"They're less than a millimeter in size, and they go into the arteries that supply the prostate and basically block them up," Isaacon said. "What happens is, over time, that the side of the prostate that we treated will decrease in size and soften.'

The treatment is done through both prostate arteries on the left and right side of the gland. The patient is only lightly sedated over a two-hour period, Isaacson said.

The outpatient procedure allowed Grubbs to go home soon after he awoke.

"I mean, instantly, the day I came home, you could tell a big difference right then," Grubbs said. He said it took a few more days to return to normal activity.

Isaacson said UNC was one of the first sites for the clinical trial. The university has since performed more than 200 procedures.