Men’s health centre

Introduction

As you get older, your prostate can get bigger. This can cause problems, such as having to get up at night to urinate. But an enlarged prostate isn't usually a serious health problem, and there are treatments to help your symptoms.

We've brought together the best research about this condition and weighed up the evidence about how to treat it. You can use our information to talk to your doctor and decide which treatments are best for you.

As you get older, your prostate can get bigger. When this happens, doctors call it benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH. This condition is not cancer, and it isn't usually a serious health problem. But it can cause irritating symptoms, such as having to get up at night to urinate.

If you can cope with the symptoms of an enlarged prostate, you may not need any treatment. But, even if your symptoms are mild, it's important to get them checked by your doctor to make sure that you don't have a more serious condition. And if you do need help for BPH, your doctor can provide treatments to help your symptoms.

Most men find it difficult to talk to their doctors about prostate problems. But don't be embarrassed. Your doctor will have helped many men with your symptoms.

Key points for men with an enlarged prostate

• Having an enlarged prostate is common, especially among older men. Symptoms include getting up at night to pass urine, having a weak urine stream, and having to strain to pass urine.

• BPH isn't serious, but the symptoms can be similar to those of more serious conditions. So it's important to see your doctor.

• BPH is often slow to develop, and it doesn't always get worse. Your doctor may try different treatments to work out which one is best for you.

• A wait-and-see approach (called watchful waiting or active monitoring) is becoming more widely used. Traditional surgery for BPH is becoming less common. This operation is called transurethral resection of the prostate, or TURP.

• Drugs, herbal treatments, and surgery may help your symptoms.

• If you do opt for surgery, there are new ways of doing it. For many of these new procedures, you don't need a general anaesthetic to make you sleep during the operation.

To understand BPH and its treatments, it's helpful to know where the prostate is and how it works. The symptoms of the disease will also make more sense if you know how your prostate is linked to other parts of your body.

What is the prostate and what does it do?

Only men have a prostate. Doctors call it the prostate gland. (Glands make substances that are used somewhere else in the body.) The prostate is a small, solid gland about the size of a walnut. It helps to make the milky fluid that comes out of your penis when you ejaculate. The fluid from your prostate helps keep your sperm healthy and helps them swim.