The Clinical Efficacy of Manual Irrigation for the Prevention of Postoperative Bleeding of Transurethral Prostate Resection

Introduction: Postoperative blood loss after prostate surgery is thought to be associated with an increase in urinary fibrinolytic activity. We investigated the effects of the local dilution of fibrinolytic agents with manual irrigation on postoperative bleeding after the transurethral resection of the prostate (TUR-P). Materials and methods: Between April 2017 and April 2021, 128 patients were prospectively randomised into two equal groups. Monopolar TUR-P was applied to all patients for benign prostatic hyperplasia, but post procedure manual irrigation was used in group 2 only. Haemoglobin levels were evaluated before and after TUR-P. Intra-op and post operative bleeding, amount of saline used for irrigation, duration of catheterisation and length of hospital stay were noted. The patients were followed up 1 month after the TUR-P. Results: The resected adenoma weight was 12.64 g in group 1 and 13.11 g in group 2. There was no difference between groups 1 and 2 in terms of haemoglobin loss and total blood loss within the first 24 h after TUR-P, which were 0.82 g and 0.95 g (P = 0.443) and 90.45 mL and 67.80 mL (P = 0.102), respectively. There was also no significant difference between the groups in the saline volume used for irrigation (19 vs. 17.3 L), catheter duration and hospital stay (2.6 vs. 2.6 days). Conclusions: We could not show the positive effects of manual irrigation on bleeding complications after TUR-P, though it is a simple and safe-seeming procedure with no specific operative technique.