Minimally invasive surgical therapies for benign prostatic hyperplasia in the geriatric population: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Geriatric patients, prone to adverse events (AEs) and low compliance with drugs, may benefit from minimally invasive surgical therapies (MISTs) for managing benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). We evaluated the efficacy, safety, and procedural characteristics of MISTs in geriatric patients with BPH. METHODS: PubMed/MEDLINE database was systematically searched for relevant articles through October 1, 2023. Eligible studies focused on geriatric patients (≥65 years) with BPH who were treated with MISTs and evaluated follow-up surgical, micturition, and/or sexual outcomes. Studies were included if there was separate reporting for age subgroups ≥65 years, or if the mean age minus standard deviation was ≥65 years, or if the first quartile was ≥65 years. RESULTS: Out of 292 screened studies, 32 (N = 3972 patients) met inclusion criteria and assessed prostatic artery embolization (PAE), Rezum, GreenLight, holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP), thulium laser enucleation of the prostate (ThuLEP), diode laser enucleation of the prostate (DiLEP), and Aquablation. Except for Rezum, all MISTs required a planned overnight stay. While PAE and Rezum could be performed under local anesthesia, the other MISTs needed general or spinal anesthesia. Postoperative catheterization duration was longest for PAE (median 14 days) and Rezum (21 days) and shortest for GreenLight (1.9 days). At 12 months postoperatively, all MISTs exhibited significant percent changes in International Prostate Symptom Score (median -69.9%) and quality of life (median -72.5%). Clavien-Dindo Grade 1 AEs ranged widely, with PAE (5.8%-36.8%), Rezum (0%-62.1%), and GreenLight (0%-67.6%) having the largest range, and HoLEP (0%-9.5%), ThuLEP (2%-6.9%), and DiLEP (5%-17.5%) having the smallest. PAE, Rezum, DiLEP, and Aquablation reported no significant changes in the International Index of Erectile Function. CONCLUSIONS: Although all the MISTs reviewed in this study effectively treat BPH in geriatric patients, differences in procedural characteristics and safety profiles across MISTs were considerable. Physicians should use shared decision-making processes, considering risks and patient characteristics, when choosing a suitable treatment option for their patients.

Adaptive Lung Radiation Therapy in the Era of Immunotherapy: A Single-Center Retrospective Study.

Purpose: Treatment for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer consists of concurrent chemoradiation followed by immunotherapy. Though this combination has been shown to have a benefit in both progression-free survival and overall survival, treatment is often limited by the development of pneumonitis. One way to mitigate toxicity is through adaptive radiation therapy, which does not currently have a standardized implementation in clinical practice. Methods and Materials: A single-center retrospective review of patients with locally advanced stage III or oligometastatic stage IV non-small cell lung cancer who were treated with chemoradiation with concurrent or subsequent immunotherapy from 2015 to 2020 was performed. Patients were stratified based on having 1 or more offline adapted plan. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between dose-volume histogram values and common toxicities experienced during this treatment, including pneumonitis and esophagitis. Results: Twenty-five patients were included in the final analysis: 10 with adapted plans (AP), and 15 with nonadapted plans (NAP). Mean age at onset was 74 years. The most common histology was adenocarcinoma (N = 13). Five patients experienced pneumonitis: 2 in AP and 3 in NAP. Mann-Whitney U test of gross tumor volume sizes between AP (346.2 ± 269.7 cm3) and NAP (153.1 ± 99.6 cm3) was significant (P = .019). Multiple linear regression analysis with adjustment for covariates of pneumonitis versus plan adaptation (P = .106) and esophagitis versus plan adaptation (P = .59) did not demonstrate a significant difference in toxicity between the adapted and nonadaptive patients. Conclusions: Despite similar toxicities in both groups, the gross tumor volume size in the AP was more than double compared with NAP, suggesting that adaptive techniques provide a method for patients with larger target volumes to be treated without an observed difference in pneumonitis rates. These results suggest adaptive radiation therapy may have a role in mitigating toxicity experience from chemoradiation and immunotherapy and warrants further investigation.

Adaptive Radiation Therapy in the Treatment of Lung Cancer: An Overview of the Current State of the Field.

Lung cancer treatment is constantly evolving due to technological advances in the delivery of radiation therapy. Adaptive radiation therapy (ART) allows for modification of a treatment plan with the goal of improving the dose distribution to the patient due to anatomic or physiologic deviations from the initial simulation. The implementation of ART for lung cancer is widely varied with limited consensus on who to adapt, when to adapt, how to adapt, and what the actual benefits of adaptation are. ART for lung cancer presents significant challenges due to the nature of the moving target, tumor shrinkage, and complex dose accumulation because of plan adaptation. This article presents an overview of the current state of the field in ART for lung cancer, specifically, probing topics of: patient selection for the greatest benefit from adaptation, models which predict who and when to adapt plans, best timing for plan adaptation, optimized workflows for implementing ART including alternatives to re-simulation, the best radiation techniques for ART including magnetic resonance guided treatment, algorithms and quality assurance, and challenges and techniques for dose reconstruction. To date, the clinical workflow burden of ART is one of the major reasons limiting its widespread acceptance. However, the growing body of evidence demonstrates overwhelming support for reduced toxicity while improving tumor dose coverage by adapting plans mid-treatment, but this is offset by the limited knowledge about tumor control. Progress made in predictive modeling of on-treatment tumor shrinkage and toxicity, optimizing the timing of adaptation of the plan during the course of treatment, creating optimal workflows to minimize staffing burden, and utilizing deformable image registration represent ways the field is moving toward a more uniform implementation of ART.