Lower urinary tract symptoms in elderly men: a simple yet comprehensive approach

Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) are common among elderly men and they may be linked to benign and malignant diseases of prostate and bladder, because of their shared inflammatory pathophysiology involving also the immune system. Actually the prostate should not be considered the only target of treatment in the management of male LUTS: it is necessary to treat bladder outlet obstruction, but also bladder and urethra. LUTS (particularly when refractory to therapy) often represent the starting point for identifying such conditions, requiring a specific and comprehensive approach. In this review, LUTS have been analysed with their association to the most frequent urological diseases as benign prostatic hyperplasia, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, and detrusor overactivity/underactivity, in a complex system of the elderly men.