ABERDEEN, Scotland, March 2 (UPI) -- A review by Scottish researchers has found removing kidney stones via surgery and shock-wave treatments are both effective, and neither is clearly superior.
"The most important finding from our review is that current practice of managing ureteric stones is based on poor-quality evidence, mostly from small trials with a lot of heterogeneity," lead investigator Ghulam Nabi of the University of Aberdeen said in a statement.
The review, published in the new issue of The Cochrane Library, examined six trials, involving 833 adults, that compared two minimally invasive kidney stone therapies: ureteroscopy, in which a surgeon removes the kidney stone with forceps; and extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy, in which sound waves break each kidney stone into small pieces.
Overall, the researchers concluded that people treated with ureteroscopies achieve a higher stone-free rate. Most of these patients had more complications -- although usually minor -- and longer hospital stays.
