Summary—Division of the anterior prostatic commissure and the bladder neck (but sparing the mucosa) achieves “urethral decompression”. This simple technique for the treatment of benign prostatic hypertrophy was performed in 68 poor risk patients.The results were very satisfactory, especially in large prostates with lateral lobe enlargement. No patient required blood transfusion. Immediate and late post‐operative complications were not encountered and the hospital stay was short. The obstructive manifestations and the maximal urinary flow rate improved in 91% of patients. Failures were due to incomplete prostatic commiss