During a 16 year period from January 1972 to December 1988, transvesical prostatectomies were performed on 364 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia in the Department of Urology, Kaohsiung Medical College Hospital. The average operational procedure time was 116.1 minutes and the average amount of tissue resected was 38.3 grams. The most common complications were wound infections (6.8%), stress incontinence (1.92%), urethral stricture (4.12%) and impotence (0.27%). In this series, epididymitis and/or orchitis was noted in 4.3% of those who underwent vasectomies and 1.8% of those who did not; thus, epididymitis cannot be prevented by a prophylactic vasectomy. There was one postoperative death (mortality rate-0.27%). The present study found that 6.86% of the transvesical prostatectomy patients will require longer hospitalization and greater amounts of antibiotics due to post-operative wound infection; therefore the use of transvesical prostatectomy will decline and only be recommended for fit patients with others genitourinary diseases such as bladder diverticulum or giant bladder calculus.