Although TURP is a very efficacious treatment for BPH, its risks, morbidity profile, inconveniences, and recovery time concerns patients and urologists. The wide gap that existed for years between simple medical therapy and TURP coupled with the need for simpler, less morbid alternatives to TURP, led to the development of minimally invasive thermal therapies such as interstitial laser thermal therapy (ILTT), which achieves its therapeutic effect through thermal ablation of the prostatic tissue (110°C). Various other nomenclatures have been used in the literature for this procedure, including interstitial laser coagulation (ILC), interstitial thermal therapy (ITT), interstitial laser therapy (ILT), laser-induced thermal therapy (LITT), and laser delivered interstitial therapy (LDIT).

These are numerous advantages over conventional surgical therapy offered by ILTT, including the fact that it can be performed on an outpatient basis rather than in the operating room; it requires local anesthesia rather than spinal or general anesthesia; it is safe and has negligible morbidity profile with regard to bleeding, impotence, retrograde ejaculation, and urinary incontinence when compared to TURP; it is efficacious in the treatment of BPH; patients can often resume work and normal daily activities within a few days after the procedure; and it can be performed safely on high surgical risk patients, the elderly, and those on anticoagulation therapy.