Ethanol Injection Treats Enlarged Prostate

A new way to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), an enlarged prostate gland, is to inject ethanol into the gland to kill the affected cells.

The procedure was developed by American Medical Systems (AMS, Minneapolis, MN, USA), which also developed the ethanol injection system, called ProstaJect. The company will soon begin enrolling patients at 15 U.S. medical centers in the first phase of clinical trials to evaluate the safety and tolerance of ethanol injections in prostate glands. While ethanol has been used to ablate cells in the liver, esophagus, and colon, this will be the first study involving the prostate gland.

The procedure is designed to be less invasive and less costly than current treatments. In European marketing studies, AMS reports, some urologists have performed the procedure in as little as 20 minutes under local anesthesia with intravenous sedation. "The new therapy holds promise for millions of aging men, as a first-line option for proactive treatment of BPH,” said Douglas W. Kohrs, president and CEO of AMS.



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