A specialist hospital in Minimally Invasive Surgery, Kelina Hospital, Lagos State, has recorded a significant milestone in prostate cancer treatment, marking its 500th successful Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate (HoLEP) surgery for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) in the last six years.
The milestone was announced at a press conference addressed by the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Celsus Undie, on Friday.
The hospital operates from two facilities in Victoria Island, Lagos, State and Gwarimpa, Abuja.
Undie to newsmen in Lagos: “This April, 2025 is a milestone in the life of Kelina Hospital as we mark 6,000 surgical operations since inception in 2008.
“So, this month, April, we are marking a milestone in our range of achievements, particularly concerning one of the commonest surgeries we do at Kelina Hospital, known as HoLEP.
“That’s an acronym for Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate.
“It’s a minimally invasive procedure.
“As I said earlier, this month, April, we will be marking 500 HoLEP surgeries that we have successfully done over a period of six years.
“HoLEP is a procedure that is done for enlarged prostates, in which you have obstruction to urine flow.
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“It’s recommended as the most appropriate approach to remove the prostate in this kind of situation, compared to other methods.
“Other methods, like the open method of removing the prostate, open prostatectomy, or another minimally invasive approach called TURP, as a trans-ureter resection of the prostate.
“Now, the advantage you get with the HoLEP compared to these other methods to mention, but a few, there’s less blood loss, the patient recovery is faster, the time spent using the catheter after the surgery is less, and you have the patients being mobile very early after the surgery.
“By the next day, the day after surgery, the patient is up and doing.
“The patient is already eating on the day of surgery.
“So, these are a number of advantages you have with doing HoLEP compared to the other methods.
“It’s something we definitely want to talk about and to celebrate as we mark out the advancements in progress.”
Dr. Undie further claimed that the hospital was the first in Nigeria to perform Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy surgery in 2012, with both patients still alive and well.
According to him, the first two surgeries were done by Dr. Mahesh Desai, President of the World Association of Urological Surgeons (SIU), who visited the hospital the same year.
In a significant development, Undie said the hospital, in 2024, performed 54 of these surgeries successfully, adding that the patients have their meals the same day within a few hours of surgery.
Responding to the question of stable electricity to power the hospital top class standard equipment and machines, Undie said: “When we look at the stability of electricity, we have to look at the equipment we have and we observed that we cannot depend on the national grid.
“So while we have our own transformer, while we have two generating plants, we also have two UPS, over 100 KVA, serving the entire hospital.
“We even have UPS for almost everything.
“So we have multiple layers of electricity.
“Just to be sure that we can carry out our procedures without interruption.
“Just to be sure that we meet our role without interruption, we just have to do that in a country like Nigeria.”
In her contribution, Omada Erica Idoko, Head of Corporate Relations, Kelani Hospital, said staff and surgeons working in the hospital are periodically sent for training across the world to ensure the best knowledge and expertise is gained to give better health services to the public.
Idoko added that the hospital also gives room for partnership with surgeons from around the world as long as they are licensed to operate in Nigeria
She mentioned that Dr. Njinou Ngninkeu Bertin, a top robotic surgeon, joined the Kelina Hospital, further enhancing their expertise in minimally invasive prostate cancer surgery.
She said: “We are pleased and privileged as well to have Dr. Bertin in our team.
“While he lives in France, he is a regular surgeon with us, licensed to practice in Nigeria, and licensed by the American Medical Council to be here with us.”
Idoko also revealed that the hospital will be adding Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy (RARP) to Laparoscopic Radical Prostatectomy.
On his part, Dr. Bertin, noted that he returned to Africa from France to ensure the continent taps into the advantages of robotic surgery, which he said, is the future.
He also claimed that prostate cancer affects Africans more than any other race in the whole world.
He said: Even Africans living outside Africa have prostate cancer more than any other race in the whole world.
“And in this country, too.
“Prostate cancer is the most common cancer affecting men.”
Dr. Bertin said it becomes imperative for men from 40 years of age to conduct tests to be aware of their status, advising that the earlier, the better.
In his further contribution, Dr. Undie said Nigerians should be encouraged to take treatment at home to avoid more complications.
He said: “It is disheartening to see people fly abroad for routine procedures like appendectomy, hernia repair, lipoma excision, or prostate biopsy.
“These are procedures that typically take less than an hour.
“Traveling 12 hours for such minor surgeries not only reflects poorly on us, but it also exposes patients to unnecessary risk.
“Several patients have returned from overseas with complications, including infections, after minor procedures like prostate biopsy.
“So we are just introducing new technology constantly.
“The idea is that we are interested in what the government is trying to do.
“The government is trying to curb medical tourism.
“The government is trying to bring our citizens who are practicing outside the country back home.
“They need a platform where they can work when they come home.
“So we need to provide that platform, which is what is bringing my colleague back into the country to assist us.
“So we need to have appropriate technology.
“And we also need to have appropriate technology not just for our colleagues who are outside the country to come back home from but also for patients who are interested in the best technology for their work, for their surgery, so that they can stay at home.
“So we’re doing this partially in support of the government that has been preaching about people coming back home, Nigerian doctors coming back home, patients coming back home, having their dream at home.”
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