Prostatic Urethral Lift (UroLift): How Is It Done?
In contrast to the other therapies for treating benign prostatic hyperplasia that ablate or resect prostate tissue, the prostatic urethral lift (UroLift) procedure involves placing UroLift implants into the prostate under direct visualization to compress the prostate lobes and unobstruct the prostatic urethra. The implants are placed using a needle that passes through the prostate to deliver a small metallic tab anchoring it to the prostate capsule. Once the capsular tab is placed, a suture connected to the capsular tab is tensioned and a second stainless steel tab is placed on the suture to lock it into place. The suture is severed.
View a video of the UroLift procedure.
Other types of surgery
Current surgical options include monopolar and bipolar transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP), robotic simple prostatectomy (retropubic, suprapubic and laparoscopic), transurethral incision of the prostate, bipolar transurethral vaporization of the prostate (TUVP), photoselective vaporization of the prostate (PVP), prostatic urethral lift (PUL), thermal ablation using transurethral microwave therapy (TUMT), water vapor thermal therapy, transurethral needle ablation (TUNA) of the prostate and enucleation using holmium (HoLEP) or thulium (ThuLEP) laser.
