How to select patients for high-energy transurethral microwave thermotherapy.

OBJECTIVES

To assist urologists in selecting patients for high-energy transurethral microwave thermotherapy (TUMT) on the basis of baseline characteristics.

METHODS

Two hundred forty-seven patients with lower urinary tract symptoms and benign prostatic hyperplasia were treated with high-energy TUMT using the Prostatron device, software version 2.5. To evaluate outcome at 26 weeks, the World Health Organization response evaluation criteria were used. Multiple logistic regression models were created to identify the predictive value of baseline parameters and total amount of energy used. In addition, receiver operating characteristic curve and the best cutoff point for the prediction of a good response of each criterion under the condition of equal "costs" of misclassification to cases and noncases were calculated.

RESULTS

For each of the three response evaluation criteria, graphs are presented to determine whether high-energy TUMT using the Prostatron can be justified. Only the total amount of energy delivered by the device has a major impact in all three criteria used.

CONCLUSIONS

Graphs have been constructed from our analysis to assist urologists in making clinical recommendations for treatment on the basis of the expected outcome when using high-energy TUMT.