Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Treatment On Its Way to Precision Medicine: Dream or Reality?

In state-of-the-art cancer research, the leading principle is to pave the way towards a precisely tailored treatment that considers the patient as an individual composed of genome, phenome, and environome. However, the key aim in this holistic approach is not just restricted to cancer treatment; rather, it represents one of the original ideals in medicine, to treat the patient, not the disease. It is precisely because benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) affects so many men and has such different clinical manifestations that its therapy should not be a “one-fits-all” solution. This is why treating BPH is not all about the prostate: it is about a man in a social network, someone who is and wants to remain potentially sexually active, a man feeling emotions such as embarrassment when he senses urge incontinence, or fear when conservative treatment fails and surgery seems to be his final option.