Botox Could Treat Enlarged Prostate

It relieves symptoms and shrinks oversized gland, study shows.

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

WEDNESDAY, May 23 (HealthDay News) -- Apparently, Botox is not just for wrinkles anymore. New research suggests that it may boost the quality of life of men with enlarged prostate when injected directly into the gland.

The small study revealed that about 75 percent of men suffering from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) experienced partial symptom relief following the treatment.

"Many men have enlarged prostate," noted study senior author Dr. Michael B. Chancellor, a professor of urology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "They take pills, but sometimes they don't work, or sometimes they have side effects, and they're afraid of surgery. So now, Botox has been shown to be safe and effective, and a single office injection, which takes about 5 minutes, can achieve success for one entire year. So, it's a new and very exciting alternative that is something between standard drugs and surgery."

Chancellor was slated to present the findings this week in Anaheim, Calif., at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association. He conducted his work alongside colleagues at the Chang Gung University Medical College in Taiwan.

"This is not surprising, but it's very interesting," added Dr. Peter T. Scardino, chairman of the department of urology and head of the Prostate Cancer Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. "Essentially, what you're doing with Botox is not so much changing the prostate size as relaxing the nerves and muscle tone in the prostate and making urinary flow easier. It certainly makes sense."

Scardino was not involved in the study, which was funded by the pharmaceutical company Allergan Inc, the maker of Botox.

According to the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse, BPH usually occurs among men over the age of 50. More than half of all men over the age of 60 develop BPH, the authors noted -- a figure that rises to 80 percent by the age of 80.

Between 40 percent and 50 percent of BPH patients develop a loss of bladder control as the growing prostate squeezes against the urethra, the passage through which urine flows.