A 106-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur suffering from an enlarged prostate gland underwent surgery at Faridabad's Sarvodaya Hospital on Thursday. KL Gupta became one of the oldest persons in the country to be successfully operated upon, the hospital said in a statement.
The centenarian patient could not pass urine naturally for the last four months, and had to use a urinary pipe (catheter) to empty his bladder.
Gupta was admitted to the hospital after he was not responding to medical treatment.
"The patient was brought to Sarvodaya Hospital in Faridabad, where the doctors diagnosed the condition as benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), an age-related prostate enlargement that can cause difficulty in passing urine by blocking its flow out of the bladder," the hospital said in a statement.
The doctors recommended immediate operation as without it the patient would have been forced to live with a catheter for the rest of his life or developed kidney failure.
Benign prostatic hyperplasia is a common condition in elderly men as part of the ageing process, ranging from an incidence of 50 per cent at 50 years of age to more than 90 per cent at 90 years of age.
Speaking on the complex surgery process, Dr Tanuj Paul Bhatia, HOD and senior consultant, urology, Sarvodaya Hospital, said, "The surgery of the patient involved removal of the enlarged prostate using laser via the normal urinary tract, without any cuts or scars. This operation is noteworthy because it takes very good set of skills to operate on a large prostate in the high-risk age group of 100 years and above."
Dr Bhatia said the surgery lasted more than one hour. He said the patient has now recovered and was able to urinate naturally.
"Luckily, other than the patient's advanced age and large prostate, we did not encounter any major challenges in conducting the 1.5-hour-long surgery. The patient has recovered well. He is catheter-free and able to urinate naturally, with excellent flow. He can now go on to lead a normal life," he further said.
Dr Tanuj Paul Bhatia said the surgery was conducted using a procedure called HoLEP, short for "Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate".
"The procedure uses a laser to remove tissue that is blocking urine flow through the prostate. Another instrument is then used to cut the prostate tissue into smaller fragments that are easily removable. The main advantages of HoLEP are that there is minimal bleeding during the procedure and the recovery is very fast hence the patient returns to normal life within a few days," he said.