You At Your Best

speCiAl to you At your Best A new treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients is now available at Northwest Medical Center – Bentonville (NMC-B). This minimally invasive treatment uses the power of water delivered with robotic precision to provide patients with symptom relief. BPH, or an enlarged prostate, is a non-cancerous condition where the prostate has grown to be larger than normal. If left untreated, BPH can cause significant health problems, including irreversible bladder or kidney damage, bladder stones and incontinence. With this new surgical procedure, surgeons utilize robotic technology to customize the therapy to their patient's unique anatomy. Dr. Chad Brekelbaum, urologist at Northwest Arkansas Urology Associates, said the new treatment offers another option to patients, especially for those with more severe symptoms or larger prostates and for those who want to preserve sexual function. While this surgery requires an overnight stay and takes place in a hospital setting with the patient under anesthesia, overall surgical time usually lasts less than an hour. The procedure does not require any incisions and uses ultrasound to target and plan treatment. After mapping out what should be removed and what to avoid, the heat-free waterjet, controlled by robotic technology, removes the tissue outline on the map precisely and consistently. "This new treatment offers a lot of advantages for the patient, including very precise ablation of the obstructing part of the prostate gland under direct visual guidance, which no other treatment offers," said Dr. Matthew Kincade, urologist at Arkansas Urology. Dr. Brekelbaum notes that the technology is a physician assisted robot where the physician guides the parameters and the robot does the surgery under constant physician monitoring. "It's a heat-free treatment without use of implant and is beneficial for all prostate sizes and configurations. It can handle any size and shape of prostate," Dr. Brekelbaum said. "It is a rapid treatment to minimize positioning and anesthetic complications and it is a standardized and consistent treatment which limits potential user errors providing reproducible, consistent results and offers less sexual dysfunction and no incontinence." Dr. Kincade added that the technology is unlike any treatment for an enlarged prostate. "Because it is done under image guidance, we have a real time understanding of exactly what tissue is being treated and we are able to see the results as we go," Dr. Kincade said. "I foresee this treatment becoming the standard of care in urology in the near future. As more and more patients are able to get this treatment, we will see not only how well patients do during the short term, but the medium- and long-term benefits really exceeding current treatments with much less risk of bothersome side effects." "We are proud to offer a solution for men with BPH," said Patrick Kerrwood, chief executive officer at NMC-B. "The new heat-free water jet therapy is another step to furthering our commitment to robotic surgery and men's health at our hospital." For more information about BPH and its treatment, speak with your urologist. Visit https://bit.ly/ NMCB_BPH for more information on this treatment. speCiAl to you At your Best No one is immune to cancer. A disease characterized by uncontrollable cell growth, cancer affects people of all ages, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. But what about gender? Does cancer pose a bigger threat to men or women? According to the National Cancer Institute, the mortality rate from cancer is higher among men than women by a considerable margin. NCI data indicates the cancer mortality rate among men is 189.5 per 100,000 men, while the rate among women is 135.7 per 100,000. In addition, cancer mortality rate is especially high among African American men (227.3 per 100,000) and much lower among Asian/Pacific Islander women (85.6 per 100,000). Why is the mortality rate so much higher among men? There is no significant biological reason to explain why men die from cancer at a higher rate than women. That's left researchers to study and speculate as to the disparity in mortality rates. One potential reason for the high cancer mortality rate among men is lifestyle. Studies indicate that men are overindulging in unhealthy behaviors more than women. Such behaviors include drinking high amounts of alcohol, gaining weight and living a more sedentary lifestyle. Each of those behaviors has been linked to a higher risk of cancer. Another lifestyle factor that almost certainly affects cancer mortality rates is smoking. According to Our World in Data, an organization that helps to identify global health issues by sourcing data from specialized institutes, medical researchers, statistical agencies, and government sources, globally around 35 percent of men smoked while just over 6 percent of women smoked in 2019. That disparity is much greater in certain countries. For example, in Indonesia 70 percent of men but only 5 percent of women smoke. The World Health Organization points out that these gaps could decrease in coming years thanks to heightened efforts on the part of tobacco companies to market their products to women. Whether those efforts prove successful or not, the disparity between men and women who Is a cancer a bigger threat to men or women? Northwest Health offers new treatment for BPH patients 4 | you At your Best | youAtyourBest.nwAonline.CoM August - Men's HeAltH | sundAy, July 24, 2022

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