Top 5 benign urology headlines you missed in July 2025

There was a wealth of important developments across urology in July 2025, with notable advancements in benign conditions such as stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

In this monthly recap, Urology Times® rounds up the most important regulatory decisions, clinical trial milestones, and practice-changing developments in benign urology from July 2025.

Scroll down for a look at the top stories that shaped the past month.

1. Pearls & Perspectives: Tailoring BPH Therapies to the Patient, with Utsav Bansal, MD

In a recent episode of Pearls & Perspectives, host Amy Pearlman, MD, sits down with Utsav Bansal, MD, who unpacks how to personalize treatment plans in a therapeutic landscape now filled with minimally invasive and surgical options.

Specifically, the conversation explores how to develop procedural versatility while maintaining a focus on patient-centered decision-making. Bansal emphasizes shared decision-making as the foundation of BPH care—ensuring that lifestyle factors, prostate size, and patient priorities guide all treatment choices.

2. FDA, French ANSM greenlight pivotal trial of UroActive smart implant for male SUI

The FDA and the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) granted an investigational device exemption (IDE) clearance to a pivotal trial of the UroActive smart implant for the treatment of SUI in men. The trial, called SOPHIA2 (NCT06968741), will enroll approximately 140 male patients with SUI across clinical trial sites in the US and France.

Primary completion of the study is expected in December 2026.

3. Experts urge FDA to remove black box warning on low-dose vaginal estrogen

On July 17, 2025, an FDA panel of experts urged the agency to remove the current boxed warning on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), particularly low-dose vaginal estrogen, citing strong evidence that the risks of serious adverse effects are overstated. Prominent voices such as Rachel Rubin, MD, and Heather Hirsch, MD, highlighted how outdated warnings and insufficient clinician education are harming women by deterring the appropriate use of HRT.

Together, the panel issued a unified call for updated labeling and greater clinician education to reflect the current science and improve care for menopausal women.

4. Pearls & Perspectives: Testosterone and the Future of Men’s Health, with John P. Mulhall, MD

In this impactful episode of Pearls & Perspectives, host Amy Pearlman, MD, sits down with one of the world’s foremost experts in sexual medicine, John P. Mulhall, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York. Known for shaping the way clinicians understand and manage testosterone deficiency and male sexual dysfunction, Mulhall offers an unfiltered, evidence-based deep dive into testosterone evaluation and treatment nuances.

5. Water vapor therapy demonstrates superior outcomes vs pharmaceutical therapy for BPH

Patients with BPH who underwent treatment with Rezūm Water Vapor Therapy demonstrated a lower rate of 5-year clinical progression as well as superior initial symptom score improvements vs patients that underwent treatment with pharmaceutical therapy, according to data published in Urology.

For the study, the investigators compared data from patients in the MTOPS clinical trial (NCT00021814), who received doxazosin, finasteride, combination therapy, or placebo, vs patients enrolled in the treatment arm of a randomized controlled trial (NCT01912339) of water vapor therapy using Rezūm.

Overall, the authors concluded, “A key advantage of [water vapor therapy] is its association with lower rates of BPH progression compared to monotherapy with alpha-blockers and 5-alpha reductase inhibitors. Additionally, [water vapor therapy] produces clinically meaningful improvement in [lower urinary tract symptoms] that are initially superior to pharmaceutical therapy. While this difference diminishes over time, these findings support thermal therapy as a viable and more effective alternative to pharmaceutical therapy for patients at risk of clinical progression of BPH.”