ST. LOUIS - Physicians at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital are among the first in the region to perform a new option for patients suffering with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) by shrinking the prostate non-surgically through a procedure called prostate artery embolization.
Our first patient shared his story with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Harry Jackson for a story in today’s paper.
Randall Heller, MD, is a retired OB/GYN who started feeling the effects of an enlarged prostate about 18 months ago. He tried medications but didn’t like the side effects and was uncomfortable with the idea of surgery. So he searched the internet and found locally that Rotimi Johnson, MD, interventional radiologist at Saint Louis University Hospital and a SLUCare physician, had a research interest in prostate artery embolization — a procedure that implants beads in the artery leading to the prostate, easing blood flow and in turn shrinking the prostate. (Dr. Heller and Dr. Johnson are photographed above.)
“I had improvement in 24 hours,” he said.
Really interesting story and it’s good news for the millions of men who are BPH sufferers.
For more on the procedure, visit our website here, or for more about Dr. Heller, visit the Post-Dispatch story here.
