Retrospective observation of the early efficacy and safety of temperature-sensitive liquid embolic agent combined with polyvinyl alcohol microspheres for prostatic artery embolization in the treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms caused by benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Background: In recent years, prostatic artery embolization (PAE) has gradually become a hot topic in the treatment of symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). However, there is an ongoing debate regarding the best embolization material for PAE. This study aimed to compare the safety and efficacy of the temperature-sensitive liquid embolic agent (TempSLE) combined with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) microspheres and simple PVA microspheres for PAE in treating lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) caused by BPH.

Methods: The clinical data of 39 patients with LUTS caused by BPH were included in this study, including 21 cases of PVA microspheres group and 18 cases of PVA microspheres + TempSLE group. The changes in various subjective and objective indexes were compared between the two groups before PAE, 1 and 3 months after operation.

Results: Three months after operation, the improvement in prostate volume (PV), post-void residual volume (PVR), peak urinary flow rate (Q_max), international prostate symptom score (IPSS), quality of life (QoL) and total prostate-specific antigen (T-PSA) in both groups were significantly improved compared with those before operation (P<0.05). And the above clinical improvement indicators at the 3-month mark demonstrated a statistically significant difference between the two groups (P<0.05). Compared with the PVA microspheres group, the prostate necrosis rate of the PVA microspheres + TempSLE was higher at 1 and 3 months after operation (P<0.05). Moreover, the PVA microspheres + TempSLE group had no significant complications, with the exception of a single case of transient gross hematuria during the perioperative period.

Conclusions: The combination of PVA microspheres and TempSLE for PAE appears to be safe and effective in the treatment of symptomatic BPH patients, with a higher degree of damage to hyperplastic prostate tissue compared to simple PVA microspheres embolization.