Laser surgery for kidney stone was invented in 1980s at Wellman Center for Photomedicine. This is not a real surgery as the kidney stones are removed through laser energy. Candela Corporation got the license for the technology and developed the pioneer commercial laser lithotripsy system.
Laser kidney stone treatment has high efficiency but the number of sittings with a doctor actually depends upon the size of the stones. The success
rate of laser surgery for kidney stone for stones up to 15mm (0.6in) is as high as 80%. The range of successful cases is 50-80%. The surgeon may
insert a stent (plastic tube) to facilitate the passing of the stone fragments to the bladder.
Ureteroscopy is a commonly used treatment involving the use of an instrument called ureteroscope (a fibre-optic and small sized instrument). The best
part with this treatment is that there are no incisions caused to the patient who is given general anesthesia for the surgery. The stones can be
removed by either grasping them if small sized or firstly breaking them into small pieces and then performing the laser surgery kidney stones with
flexible or rigid ureteroscope. There remains a risk of heavy blood loss and infection during kidney stone treatment with laser or ureteroscopy.
You should think of laser surgery kidney stones if the following symptoms of kidney stones persist. The symptoms will be clearly identifiable when
the stones are large enough to block the passage of urine through the urinary bladder. The commonly complained symptoms include pain centered in
the flank and may move toward the front abdomen or to the groin area. In case of acute situation the patient can suffer from sensations of nausea
and actual vomiting. Hematuria can also surface in acute cases. If a person is diabetic then he can also suffer from fever due to inability to
pass infected urine.
There is high risk of stone formation if: