Botox May Ease Pain of Enlarged Prostate
Injections could provide another option short of surgery

(HealthDay News) -- A drug that's become popular among women for its ability to smooth facial wrinkles might also help men -- but in a very different way.

Injections of Botox, which works by weakening or paralyzing certain muscles or by blocking certain nerves, have been found to ease the suffering of men with enlarged prostates.

Researchers found that about 75 percent of men with benign prostatic hyperplasia got relief when Botox was injected into the gland.

Symptoms of an enlarged prostate 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.

"Many men have enlarged prostate," noted the study's 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 five minutes, can achieve success for one entire year."

Chancellor called using Botox for prostate enlargement "a new and very exciting alternative that is something between standard drugs and surgery."

Benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, usually occurs among men older than 50, according to the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse. The researchers said that more than half of all men older than 60 develop BPH -- a figure that climbs to 80 percent by the age of 80.

Men with mild BPH can skip treatment, but those with more serious symptoms often take medications to shrink or relax the gland or to relieve bladder blockage. Doctors use a number of drugs, often in combination, to treat BPH. If that fails, the prostate can be reduced or removed via laser or microwave techniques or surgery.

For the study, the researchers focused on 37 men who averaged 67 years old and had not responded to standard treatments for BPH. Using an ultrasound guide, the men were injected once with between 100 and 200 units of Botox, depending on the size of the prostate.

Almost three-quarters of the men experienced a 30 percent improvement in their symptoms for up to a year after the injection, the study found. None of them experienced significant side effects, such as erectile dysfunction or urinary incontinence.

"This is not surprising, but it's very interesting," Dr. Peter T. Scardino, chairman of surgery and head of the Prostate Cancer Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City , told HealthDay .

"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," he said. "It certainly makes sense."

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

On the Web

To learn more about BPH, visit the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

SOURCES: HealthDay News ; Michael B. Chancellor, M.D., professor of urology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh; Peter T. Scardino, M.D., chairman, Department of Urology, and head, Prostate Cancer Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City; U.S. National Library of Medicine (www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus)
Author: Anne Thompson
Publication Date: May 31, 2008
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