ABSTRACT

Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) is an important disease in aging men. The treatment of BPH consists of multiple treatment modalities including diverse pharmacological treatment procedures and surgical interventions. The efficiency of phytotherapy, although practiced for decades in the treatment of BPH, is still under discussion. In BPH treatment, either with or without prescription, more than thirty phytotherapeutic agents are widely used throughout the world. Despite the existence of many studies demonstrating the superiority of phytotherapy to placebo, significant methodological insufficiencies in these studies have led to low recommendation in guidelines. The increasing tendency of the patients towards alternative medicine brought about the necessity of randomized, double-blind; placebo controlled studies as well as awareness about these extracts in the urologists. In the present manuscript, the recent phytotherapy options in BPH based lower urinary tract symptoms are reviewed.