Enlarged prostate · Guide
Enlarged prostate explorer: guide
Show the prostate and bladder within the body, enter the prostate volume, middle lobe, urine left after passing urine and bladder wall from the report, explain the treatment and share a matching picture sheet.
For patients and families
Look at the picture together
The picture opens with the whole body. Choose Pelvis to see the bladder and the prostate just below it, then Prostate to move close. The urethra, the tube you pass urine through, runs through the middle of the prostate. Drag to turn the model and scroll or pinch to zoom.
Show what your team has found
Your clinician can enter the size of your prostate from your scan, whether part of it (a middle lobe) pushes up into the bladder, how much urine was left in your bladder after you passed urine, and whether the bladder wall looks thicker. The model is cut open down the middle so you can see the urethra inside. The side view in the corner shows the same thing as a simple diagram. Shapes are schematic, not a copy of your scan.
An enlarged prostate is very common as men get older. It is not cancer and does not lead to cancer.
Things you could ask
“Can you show me where the prostate presses on the urethra?”
“Is my bladder emptying properly?”
“What would each treatment change, and how would it affect sex?”
Take it home
Ask for a picture sheet with the views you discussed, your team’s explanation, what the prostate does, where to find help and the words used. A QR code reopens the same model settings on your phone. Names, notes and contact details are never included in that code or saved online.
For clinicians
Start with orientation
The explorer uses the shared male pelvis from the bladder explorer: bladder, seminal vesicles, rectum, pelvic floor, sacrum and body outline. The prostate keeps the shared prostate’s shape (38 × 30 × 26 mm at about 15.5 mL), scaled to the entered volume; it is placed directly under the bladder neck so that intravesical protrusion and urethral compression can be shown. Normal anatomy is drawn at about 20 mL until findings are added.
Set up from the report
| Control | What to set |
|---|---|
| Prostate volume | 10–250 mL from transrectal or transabdominal ultrasound or MRI. The gland is an ellipsoid of that volume; it grows upwards (lifting the bladder) and forwards. The transition zone is drawn larger as the volume rises, and the prostatic urethra narrower; both are schematic. |
| Middle lobe | Yes when the report describes a median lobe or intravesical prostatic protrusion. Its size is illustrative; the grade of protrusion is not entered. |
| Urine left after passing urine | 0–1000 mL post-void residual from a bladder scan. Moving the control ticks “Show the urine left”. The urine drawn has the entered volume; if it would not fit in the usual model bladder, the bladder is drawn larger. Bladder shape is schematic. |
| Bladder wall thickened | Yes when the report describes bladder wall thickening or trabeculation. The thickness is drawn schematically; no measurement is shown. |
Explain a selected plan
Watchful waiting and lifestyle, Medicines (alpha blockers and 5-alpha reductase inhibitors) and Catheter change nothing in the gland, so nothing is coloured teal; the catheter is drawn in grey with its balloon in the bladder. TURP colours the central adenoma teal; After treatment shows a resection cavity inside the transition zone. Laser prostate surgery (HoLEP) colours the whole transition zone (and any middle lobe) teal; afterwards a larger cavity is shown. Prostatic urethral lift colours the lateral lobes teal as the area treated; afterwards the implants and a wider channel are shown. Rezum, prostate artery embolisation, open or robotic simple prostatectomy and other options are not modelled.
Limits
- The model does not interpret scans or flow tests, grade symptoms, judge whether surgery is needed or suggest a treatment. Symptom scores, flow rate, PSA and kidney function are not entered.
- Gland, lobe, cavity and implant shapes are schematic, and the immediate post-operative cavity is drawn rather than the healed result.
Sources and review
Practising urologist review is still needed for clinical teaching use. Please send corrections through feedback.