Safety of greenlight photoselective vaporisation of prostate in lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia in patients using anticoagulants due to cardiovascular comorbidities

Lasers have been used in the management of benign prostatic hyperplasia for the last two decades. To be comparable, they should reduce or avoid the immediate and long-term complications of transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) or open prostatectomy (OP), especially bleeding and need for blood transfusion. Although Holmium laser treatment of the prostate was compared frequently in terms of cardiovascular safety with TURP or OP, photoselective vaporisation of the prostate (PVP) was not largely evaluated. In this article we analyzed the current literature to see if there is convincing data to support the observation of some authors that use of PVP is associated with increased safety in patients on anticoagulants with cardiovascular comorbidities. With this purpose a Medline search between January 2004 to March 2013 was performed using evidence obtained from randomised trials, well-designed controlled studies without randomisation, individual cohort studies, individual case control studies and case reports Results: In the last 10 years, several case-control and cohort studies have demonstrated the efficacy of PVP as well as its safety in patients with cardiovascular comorbidities using anticoagulants. The results confirmed the overall lower perioperative and postoperative morbidity of PVP, whereas the efficacy was comparable to TURP in the short term, despite a higher reoperation rate. Conclusion: Although it is still developing, PVP with KTP or LBO seems to be a promising alternative to both TURP and OP in terms of cardiovascular safety and in patients using anticoagulants.