Prairie Lakes Brings Cutting Edge BPH Procedure to Watertown

Watertown area men suffering from symptoms such as frequency, urgency, straining, and irregular flow due to benign prostatic hyperplasia now have a new minimally invasive option for relief closer to home.

Chris Adducci, MD, with Prairie Lakes Urology recently began offering transurethral radiofrequency thermal therapy with the Rezum system to qualified patients, many of whom either want to get off medication for BPH or avoid going on it. 

“The technique is not new,” says Dr. Adducci. “He have had endoscopic ways of opening up the area using heat. The difference with Rezum is that it is convected heat, rather than conducted heat. You are literally injecting steam into the prostate at nine-second intervals. So there is less discomfort than with a procedure such as transurethral needle ablation (TUNA), which also takes a lot longer.”

With Rezum, the patient receives an average of six needle insertions (up to 15), each one lasting nine seconds. The procedure is done under local anesthesia, often at an outpatient center like Watertown’s Mallard Pointe Surgical Center. Patients go home the same day with a catheter, which comes out in three days.

“Our patients are tolerating this very well,” says Dr. Adducci, who trained on the procedure at Urology Specialists in Sioux Falls, the only other center in South Dakota that currently offers Rezum.

“Most men experience some discomfort, frequency, and urgency for a few weeks. But gradually, the tissue that was killed with the steam will resorb and open the channel. By 10 to 12 weeks, they are as good as they are going to get.”

Adducci says Rezum can be used for a wider range of patients than some other minimally invasive BPH treatments such as the UroLift implant system and causes less discomfort than transurethral microwave thermotherapy (TUMT). Rezum does not cause incontinence or erectile dysfunction and is approved for gland sizes less than 80 grams.

“This represents the latest in-office procedure for BPH but it is one that is very, very tolerable,” says Dr. Adducci. “It is great to be able to offer this cutting edge treatment right here in Watertown. This one is here to stay."