In Vitro Assessment of the Efficacy of Thermal Therapy in Human Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

The successful management of BPH with minimally invasive thermal therapies requires a firm understanding of the temperature–time relationship for tissue destruction. In order to accomplish this objective, the present in vitro study assesses the cellular viability of human BPH tissue subjected to an experimental matrix of different temperature–time combinations. Hyperplastic prostate tissue was obtained from 10 radical prostatectomy specimens resected for adenocarcinoma. A portion of hyperplastic tissue from the lateral lobe of each prostate was sectioned into multiple 1 mm thick tissue strips, placed on a coverslip and thermally treated on a controlled temperature copper block with various temperatures (45–70°C) for various times (1–60 min). After heat treatment, the tissue slices were cultured for 72 h and viability was assessed using two independent assays: histology and dye uptake for stromal tissue and using histology alone for the glandular tissue. The hyperplastic human prostate tissue showed a prog...