Kidney Stones

"Anytime we do a PCNL...we always get a CT scan. That's pretty standard," says John Michael DiBianco, MD.

"Certainly, anybody who is a recurrent stone former, or of a young age when they develop their first stone, they automatically get a 24-hour urine test," says Joseph Song, MD.

"As I like to say, 'They are little people with small stones that cause big problems,' " says Katherine Chan, MD, MPH.

"We found that as we got better and better at doing it, the majority of patients now can go home in this fashion. They can go home the day of the procedure with nothing in them," says Mantu Gupta, MD.

"It's my opinion that no patient population benefits more from a miniaturized technique than a pediatric patient," says John Michael DiBianco, MD.

"One of the biggest considerations we have in imaging pediatric patients is radiation exposure," says Katherine Chan, MD, MPH.

"Kidney stones in children are quite a bit different than in adults," says Katherine Chan, MD, MPH.

"This clearance in the US of our new ureteroscopy solution not only demonstrates a market expansion for Ambu; it is a testament to the progressive shift towards single-use solutions within the field of urology," says Britt Meelby Jensen.

"Pediatric patients do have a somewhat heterogeneous or variable presentation of their stone disease. A lot of that is dependent upon their age," says Katherine Chan, MD, MPH.

"We provide surgical treatments for kidney stones, and we also help patients manage their stones medically; for example, helping them perhaps with spontaneous passage of their stones," says Katherine Chan, MD, MPH.

"[The care plan] incorporates patient-specific data to reinforce dietary management, fluid intake, and medication adherence based on the patient's 24-hour urine collection results," says Jenny Guo, MD.

Regarding patient-reported outcomes, those who underwent URS showed higher urinary symptoms, greater pain intensity, and greater pain interference at 1 week following surgery compared with those who underwent SWL.

"I would say the take-home message is that usage of this mobile health platform could potentially improve patient quality of life and compliance with recommendations," says Jenny Guo, MD.

"We found that the GetWell patients have shown increases in their Wisconsin Stone Quality of Life scores, or the WISQOL score, of about 3 points from baseline to 6 months," says Jenny Guo, MD.

"[The care plan] incorporates patient-specific data to reinforce dietary management, fluid intake, and medication adherence based on the patient's 24-hour urine collection results," says Jenny Guo, MD.

“We found that the SAPS is associated with higher intrarenal pressure and flow rate when compared to automated pumps," said Lucas B. Vergamini, MD.

Combination treatment with burst wave lithotripsy and ultrasonic propulsion for small, asymptomatic renal stones is feasible.

“I cannot overstate the impact of this device on my management of kidney stone patients," says J. Stuart Wolf, Jr., MD, FACS.

The company plans to announce full market availability of the RenaFlex ureteroscope system at a later date.

"We know that surgical intervention for ureteroscopy for both renal and ureteral stones does result in a relatively rapid and also quite substantial improvement in quality of life that does exceed preoperative baseline," says Justin B. Ziemba, MD, MSEd.

ADV7103 is currently being studied in the phase 2/3 CORAL-1 study, enrolling patients with cystinuria across centers in France and Belgium.

"What we did find was that a preoperative ureteral stent, and when we did semi rigid ureteroscopy initially, seemed to be protective against worse symptoms," says Justin B. Ziemba, MD, MSEd.

"In fact, on multivariate analysis, they wanted to look at other health concerns that raise people's risk of getting kidney stones and the 3 things that came up from the study where the history of gallstones, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease," says Ben H. Chew, MD, MSc, FRCSC.

"The main finding is that when you look at men with low testosterone, grouped 18 and above, we found that there is an association between low testosterone and kidney stone encounter diagnoses," says Austin Thompson.

"If you suspect that you have a calcium oxalate monohydrate stone, we found that the most effective settings are 0.4 J and 40 Hz, and maybe as a backup setting, 0.2 J and 100 Hz," says Ojas Shah, MD.

"While alkaline water products have a higher pH than regular water, they have a negligible alkali content–which suggests that they can't raise urine pH enough to affect the development of kidney and other urinary stones," says Roshan M. Patel, MD.

“There are a lot of people using this technology now, but it is not mainstream by any means,” says Ojas Shah, MD.

“These are key, because right now our sepsis rates following ureteroscopy are, quite frankly, unacceptable,” says Jordan L. Allen, MD.

As the year comes to a close, we revisit some of this year’s top content on kidney stones.

"If the diversity and robust functional potential of the healthy human microbiome is repeatedly assaulted by the average Westernized lifestyle via antibiotic exposure, diet, and other environmental factors, kidney stone prevalence will continue to increase," the authors write.