Background Benign prostate hyperplasia is one of the most common diseases affecting the health of the aging males. Watchful waiting is an acceptable management strategy for benign prostate hyperplasia in which the patient is monitored by the physician but receives no active intervention. The epidemiological data on this are lacking in China. Our study was designed to evaluate the changes of signs and symptoms of patients with benign prostate hyperplasia during management by watchful waiting in China.Methods One hundred and forty-five patients with benign prostate hyperplasia aged ＞ 50 years were enrolled in management by watchful waiting. All the patients were visited every 6 months and were given an International Prostate Symptom Score and Quality of Life questionnaire to complete. They also had uroflowmetry and were assessed using ultrasonography to get the volume of prostate, transition zone and amount of residual urine. The Students t test, the Chi-square test, and variance analysis were used in the statistical analysis.Results All patients were visited after 6 months, the mean volume of transitional zone was found to haveincreased by 1.6 ml (P＜0.01), International Prostate Symptom Score was increased by 0.8 (P＜0.01) and Quality of Life was increased by 0.2 (P＜0.01), and there was no statistical change in other data. Among these patients,17.9% (26/145) visited again after 12 months when the data failed to show a statistically significant difference among the three groups (0, 6, and 12 months).Conclusions After one years follow-up, the progression of benign prostate hyperplasia was slow and the clinical data did not undergo much change.