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Endoscopic enucleation of the prostate (EEP) techniques for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) have become increasingly popular among urologists over the past 23 years. Despite the energy source employed, the aim of all these procedures is to endoscopically remove the prostatic lobes by enucleating them from the prostate surgical capsule. The reasons for which EEP has gained popularity among urologists are the reduction in complications and hospital stay compared to endoscopic gold standard Transurethral Resection of the Prostate (TURP), but especially the possibility to treat large prostates, allowing to abandon open simple prostatectomy (OP) and to avoid the burden related to open surgery. Holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP) sets the basic principles of all EEP techniques in 1998 and has become the treatment of reference for BPH. Since then, various lasers have been developed and applied to prostatic enucleation. The thulium laser has a slightly shorter wavelength compared to the holmium laser and a continuous wave output, which increase vaporization and reduce penetration depth. These features make it ideal for prostatic enucleation. A vapoenucleating technique called Thulium Laser Vapoenucleation of the Prostate was presented in 2009, followed by a blunt enucleating technique called Thulium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate in 2010. These techniques have become alternatives to HoLEP and TURP; however, the amount of literature and randomized controlled trials available are inferior compared to HoLEP. The aim of this review is to outline, describe, and discuss current evidence on thulium enucleating techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A more specific and early diagnostics for prostate cancer (PCa) is highly desirable. In this study, being inflammation the focus of our effort, serum protein profiles were analyzed in order to investigate if this parameter could interfere with the search of discriminating proteins between PCa and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Methods: Patients with clinical suspect of PCa and candidates for trans-rectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy (TRUS) were enrolled. Histological specimens were examined in order to grade and classify the tumor, identify BPH and detect inflammation. Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionization-Time of Flight-Mass Spectrometry (SELDI-ToF-MS) and twodimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) coupled with Liquid Chromatography-MS/MS (LCMS/ MS) were used to analyze immuno-depleted serum samples from patients with PCa and BPH. Results: The comparison between PCa (with and without inflammation) and BPH (with and without inflammation) serum samples by SELDI-ToF-MS analysis did not show differences in protein expression, while changes were only observed when the concomitant presence of inflammation was taken into consideration. In fact, when samples with histological sign of inflammation were excluded, 20 significantly different protein peaks were detected. Subsequent comparisons (PCa with inflammation vs PCa without inflammation, and BPH with inflammation vs BPH without inflammation) showed that 16 proteins appeared to be modified in the presence of inflammation, while 4 protein peaks were not modified. With 2-DE analysis, comparing PCa without inflammation vs PCa with inflammation, and BPH without inflammation vs the same condition in the presence of inflammation, were identified 29 and 25 differentially expressed protein spots, respectively. Excluding samples with inflammation the comparison between PCa vs BPH showed 9 unique PCa proteins, 4 of which overlapped with those previously identified in the presence of inflammation, while other 2 were new proteins, not identified in our previous comparisons. Conclusions: The present study indicates that inflammation might be a confounding parameter during the proteomic research of candidate biomarkers of PCa. These results indicate that some possible biomarker-candidate proteins are strongly influenced by the presence of inflammation, hence only a well-selected protein pattern should be considered for potential marker of PCa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]