My husband has a kidney stone. He had a procedure 2 weeks ago to put a stent in.I was told the stone was just outside the kidney, too high up to be grabbed and too close to the kidney to be lasered. He went back today to get stent removed and hopefully get the stone out. During the procedure found that the stone had gone back into the kidney so they blasted it. Came home with another stent to be removed in 3 days. Why could the stone not be blasted 2 weeks ago and is there a difference between blasting and laser?
HelloThanks for query. Your husband has stone in his kidney probably in upper calyx which is technique very difficult to be accessed by rigid endoscopes, that may be reason for it not being fragmented in first sitting. After putting the stent the entire ureter undergoes passive dilatation making endoscopes to be negotiated freely through dilated ureter during second sitting and stone can be fragmented easily. In blasting we use pneumatic energy to fragment the stone whereas in laser surgery we use laser energy to burn the stone. It is risky to use laser in kidney if the stone is very close to cortex and there is risk of damaging the kidney tissue. Chat Doctor.