Using mobile phone to prevent the occurrence of transurethral resection of the prostate syndrome

Transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) syndrome is a serious complication of TURP surgery. It is caused by excessive absorption of irrigating fluid into the body, causing fluid overload, hyponatremia, and its various manifestations. To decrease the absorption of irrigating fluid, it is recommended that the TURP procedure does not exceed 60 min and the height of irrigating fluid should be as low as possible and usually limited to 60–70 cm above the surgical table.[1,2] Although the duration of the procedure is well monitored during surgery, the height of the irrigating fluid above the surgical table is not objectively measured. For this purpose, a mobile app named “MEASURE” (Developed by Apple Inc., USA) may be used. Using this app, we can measure this distance in real time, allowing better patient care [Figure 1].Figure 1: Demonstrating use of the mobile app ’measure’ to estimate the height of irrigation fluidWe tried to test the accuracy of the measurements provided by this app by comparing the values provided by this app with the manual measurement of the same distance using the measuring tape. We took a total of 20 measurements, ranging in distance from 30 to 100 cm, and found that the measurements provided by this app corresponded to that using the measuring tape with a mean difference of 7 cm between the two. On the basis of this, we suggest that this app may be used as a rough guide to estimate the height of irrigating fluids. However, further studies would be needed to understand the ability of this app (and similar ones) for this purpose and whether the discrepancy with actual height would be clinically significant. Financial support and sponsorship This study is supported by an internal grant from Duke-NUS Medical School. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.