Botox Could Treat Enlarged Prostate

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Accompanying symptoms include a frequent need to urinate (often at night), trouble urinating (even when feeling the urge), blood in the urine, and urinary tract infections. In severe cases, bladder and kidney damage can result.

Physicians diagnose BPH by means of digital rectal exams, blood tests, X-rays, sonograms, or cystoscopy -- the insertion of a lighted tube into the bladder.

Once identified, patients with mild BPH may choose to forego treatment. However, those with more serious symptoms are often prescribed medications to shrink or relax the gland to relieve bladder blockage.

Doctors use a number of drugs, often in combination, to treat BPH. When that fails, the prostate can be reduced or removed via laser or microwave techniques, or invasive surgery.

In this study, Chancellor and his colleagues honed in on Botox as a possible treatment alternative.

The researchers focused on 37 men, averaging 67 years of age, who had not responded to standard treatments for BPH.

Using an ultrasound guide, the patients were injected once with between 100 and 200 units of Botox, depending on the size of the prostate.

The team found that nearly three-quarters of the patients experienced a 30 percent improvement in their symptoms for up to a year following the injection. None of the patients experienced significant side effects, such as erectile dysfunction or urinary incontinence.

Follow-up exams conducted six months and 12 months following treatment also showed an up to 15 percent reduction in prostate size among some, but not all, patients. According to the researchers, this suggests Botox instigated a controlled form of prostate cell death that shrank the gland.

However, these reductions in prostate size did not seem to explain symptom improvement, they said. Rather, symptom relief was probably associated with a change in prostate gland muscle tone and sensory function following Botox injections.

"In fact, the effect of the Botox is similar to what the alpha-blockers [drugs] do and have done for many years," noted Scardino. "But, I can imagine this being useful as an alternate to a more invasive procedure for people who all of a sudden can't urinate and face an emergency situation."