Background: Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a common disease among elderly men in Japan. Recently, various non-invasive treatment modalities have been developed, however the criteria for the diagnosis and therapeutic effects of BPH have not been established yet. World Health Organization sponsored International Prostate Symptom Score (I-PSS) was devised. The criteria, however, were limited to evaluate the frequency of the subjective symptoms of BPH. In addition, this criteria did not include the quality of life (QOL) score.
Patients and methods: We examined I-PSS and a new by modified symptom score for patients who underwent TUR-P.
Results: The efficacy of TUR-P could be confirmed by I-PSS, however the criteria proposed in I-PSS and in our modified symptom score were shown to be inadequate to evaluate QOL, and to be not specific scale for BPH. It was demonstrated that objective findings such as peak flow rate, residual urine volume and prostate volume did not correlate with the QOL score, however each objective and subjective significantly improved after TUR-P.
Conclusion: These results suggested that further effort should be made to establish reliable criteria for the diagnosis and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy considering QOL in BPH patients.