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Have Catheter Due To Inability To Urinate, Have A Defibrillator. What Type Of Surgery? Prognosis Of Surgery?

Posted on Sun, 10 Jun 2012

Question: My father in law is 84 years old and lives in Florida. He is currently having trouble urintating. He was put on a catheter 6 weeks ago. The urologist removed the catheter after 2 weeks and told my father in law to go home and drink a lot of fluids and see if he was able to urinate. He was not able to urinate, so they gave him a catheter again for two weeks. He was told to do the same thing and return in 2 weeks. He had the same result after the catheter was removed and was still unable to urinate. He has been put on a catheter again for the third time and they are now talking about my father in law having surgery. He has a defibulator and is 84 years old. i tried to ask him what type of surgery he will be having and what his diagnosis is. I also want to know what is prognosis of having surgery at his age. He said that he has a XXXXXXX medicine doctor and also a cardiologist along with the urologist. What is your opinion?

Answered by Dr. CS Narayan (1 hour later)

Hello and thanks for your query.

I shall make an effort to provide you with good professional recommendations specific to your questions.

I understand you are concerned about the management plan for your father in law.
I think he will be operated to remove the cause of obstruction in the upper urinary tract - most likely the prostate area going by the age that prostate hypertrophy is the most common condition in elderly. The outcome is good most of the time and the patient is out of the operating table in an hour and the surgery is done with a key hole incision to his groin area, so the risks of invasive surgery are a lot minimized / do not exist. He would be carefully evaluated for the preanaesthetic check up though which is routine. The outcome is very good, and the surgery is the commonest surgery done in that age group.

I would advise you to be relaxed about this, and give some courage to him as this is not the first time he is on the table. i understand he has hypertension, but that should be taken care amply by the specialists.

Yet again, I duly appreciate your query to me, I do hope that you have found something useful to help you and I shall be glad to answer any further apprehensions.

Sincerely,

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Raju A.T

Follow up: Dr. CS Narayan (1 hour later)

My father in law did say that he is concerned about the possibility of cancer. Would they have tested my father in law for this before doing the surgery? Would they have indicated a concern for cancer with any of the visits they had with him?

Answered by Dr. CS Narayan (5 hours later)

Hello and thanks again for the reply,

Your answer will be possible if they would have done cancer antigen test called Prostrate Specific Antigen (PSA) on him. I am sure this would been dealt with by the surgeon before the planning of this operation.

Prostate cancers are not as common as Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy, but an enlargement would have to rule out both.

Let me know if you have further queries.

Regards

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad