BERKELEY, CA (UroToday.com) - The idea for this project emerged due to the high number of cases where patients presented with bilateral ureteral calculi.
There was a continuous debate in the literature regarding whether to enlist those patients for single or dual sessions. In addition, most of the published data was of a small series.
We did a retrospective study that included data of 89 patients who underwent BSU over a period of 5 years. Univariate and multivariate statistical tests were performed to determine factors affecting the success of BSU in treatment of bilateral ureteral calculi. Patient who underwent BSU were compared with 105 patients treated with URS for extraction of multiple calculi located in different sites of one ureter. This control arm was chosen as it represented a large stone burden that posed technical challenges as in cases of bilateral procedures.
In our series, the overall stone-free rate (86%) was within the reported ranges, but the success rate of BSU was 70% because we calculated success for cases that became stone-free after a single procedure without complications. In addition, intraoperative complication rate was 6.2% and the ureteral perforation incidence was 1.7%. Such low complication rates can be explained by the use of small caliber URS compared with the large rigid URS used in other reports.
Written by:
Ahmed El Hefnawy, MD as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com. This initiative offers a method of publishing for the professional urology community. Authors are given an opportunity to expand on the circumstances, limitations etc... of their research by referencing the published abstract.
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