ABSTRACT
Introduction: Urolithiasis is a common and frequently occurring disease with high recurrence rate. Ureteroscopic lithotripsy [URSL] and extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy [ESWL] are two most popular modalities in the treatment of urolithiasis. The efficacy of these two methods is reviewed on the treatment of ureteral stones in this systematic review
Method: PubMed was searched for the relevant randomized control trials [RCTs]. Stone-free rate and retreatment rate were extracted from each article as the main outcomes, and Odds ratio was reported in each study
Result: Based on calculated odds ratio of each article, URSL has an odds ratio of <1 for the event of stone-free rate, and odds ratio of >1 for the event of retreatment rate compared with ESWL
Discussion: Performing URSL in the treatment of urolithiasis could be associated with higher stone-free rate and lower retreatment rate; however duration of the surgery seems to be longer during URSL compared with ESWL
Conclusions: There was high discrepancy between included RCTs regarding the study design, stone location, types of ureteroscope, intracorporeal lithotripsy devices, time to follow-up, and surgeon experience, which might affect the decision regarding type of surgery