Urology

Our urology department provides a comprehensive service for the full spectrum of urological problems. In particular it has a national reputation for offering the latest minimally invasive treatments for a variety of conditions including prostate cancer, bladder cancer, kidney stones and benign prostatic enlargement.

In line with national cancer standards, the department holds weekly multidisciplinary team meetings and is able to provide a comprehensive service to patients with a urological cancer.

Both NHS and private patients can be seen within the department. Referral should be made from your GP.

The team

Prostate problems (Lead consultant: Mr Richard Hindley)

A third of men over 50 will experience some degree of urinary symptoms. These can be due to benign prostate enlargement and sometimes prostate cancer. There are many treatments both surgical and medical to treat prostate disease but below are some of the new treatments available for patients at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital.

Greenlight Laser
Greenlight is used to treat men with benign (non cancerous) prostate enlargement. This is a normal part of the ageing process in men but can cause troublesome urinary symptoms with advancing age. The conventional operation, whilst effective, has side effects particularly post operative bleeding. With Greenlight laser the risk of bleeding is reduced as is incontinence and impotence and patients will usually be in hospital for less than 24 hours.

HIFU
This is a relatively new treatment for prostate cancer. High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) works by using precision focused ultrasound waves to rapidly heat and destroy cancerous prostate tissue. This treatment is non invasive and can be done as a day case procedure. It can be used for early prostate cancer confined to the prostate gland and as a salvage treatment when other treatments have failed.

Bladder cancer (Lead consultant: Mr Hugh Mostafid)
Bladder cancer affects more than 12,000 people every year and is the most expensive cancer to treat. One reason for this is that it frequently recurs. It is common for patients with this condition to have several operations a year to deal with recurrences.

Blue Light Cystoscopy
Bladder cancer recurrence rate can be reduced from 35% to 10% using blue light cystoscopy. For this treatment a fluorescent dye is given into the bladder prior to a telescopic inspection of the bladder using a blue light. The dye is only taken up by cancerous tumours, which will then fluoresce with the blue light even if they are invisible to the naked eye. This treatment reduces the rate of bladder cancer recurrence.

Kidney Stones (Lead consultant: Mr Tim Nedus)
Kidney stones are extremely painful and often recur. We can treat virtually all stones irrespective of size using the latest key-hole surgical techniques. As importantly, we offer all patients comprehensive screening investigations to prevent further stone formation.

Research Trials
As a department we are involved in a number of research trials for patients diagnosed with Prostate and bladder cancer.

The private referral process for Greenlight Laser, HIFU, Blue light cystoscopy and stone surgery is as follows:

Patients should be referred to the relevant consultant via their secretary. The patient will have an outpatient appointment with the consultant within a week, where the relevant treatment decisions will be made. For cancer cases, the patient will receive treatment within 31 days of the decision to treat.