Diagnostic imaging evaluation of benign prostatic hyperplasia.

The optimal evaluation of the patient with symptomatic BPH should include the diagnostic testing necessary to supplement the clinical examination and select a suitable medical, surgical, or interventional therapeutic option. A variety of imaging modalities offer unique but often unnecessary, superfluous, or very expensive information. Rarely is therapeutic intervention for symptomatic BPH denied a patient because of lesions detected with screening imaging tests; it may be only delayed rather than withheld. Virtually all pretreatment IVUs in patients with BPH are normal. Estimates range from 73 to 93 per cent of the studies as normal or having only insignificant findings. Significant pathology, either life-threatening or sufficient to alter or delay treatment, is found between 0.5 and 10 per cent of the time. Upper tract hydronephrosis is the most common finding (3 to 13 per cent). Renal or urothelial cancer prevalence in the patient population with BPH is really no different than in the general population. If signs or symptoms are not present to alert the clinician to some risk factor other than the symptoms of BPH, there is no benefit for routine urography solely for upper tract cancer detection. Furthermore, with the growing use of nonionic contrast media for elderly patients, the cost of the preoperative routine IVU will increase even further as the added charge for contrast ($100 or more) is tacked onto the cost of the study. Azotemic patients are best served by diagnostic ultrasound or by Foley catheter drainage prior to urography when indicated. Ultrasound remains an operator-dependent and technology-limited examination that cannot measure renal function, but the sensitivity and specificity, as well as the overall diagnostic accuracy, are equal to or greater than those of urography for the detection of hydronephrosis, cystic renal masses, and bladder or prostate abnormalities. False-positive ultrasound scans do occur secondary to reflux caused by bladder diverticula, megacalicosis, or other congenital abnormalities. However, these lesions are distinctly rare. Sensitivity for urothelial malignancy is not good, but endoscopic, clinical, and laboratory evaluations should provide adequate pretherapy diagnostic screening. In spite of the preoperative comfort that a normal IVU may give the patient and the operating surgeon, routine intravenous urography for all BPH patients should no longer be considered necessary. Diagnostic ultrasound, either transabdominal or transrectal, also offers the ability to evaluate the kidneys, ureters, and bladder, effectively replacing routine intravenous urography.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)