minijfil®: a new safe and effective stent for well-tolerated repeated extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy or ureteroscopy for medium-to-large kidney stones?

results in group 1, the mean largest and cumulative stone diameters, respectively, were 18.7 ± 5.7 mm and 45.0 ± 12.0 mm. in group 2, the mean volume was 6,288.4 ± 2,733.0 mm3. the overall sf was 96.4% (100% for group 1 and 75% for group 2). the mean number of sessions of eswl and urs, respectively, was 1.4 ± 0.7 and 0.8 ± 0.9 in group 1 and 4.0 ± 2.0 and 1.5 ± 1.3 in group 2. the mean times to achieve these rates were 3.2 ± 1.7 months and 5.6 ± 2.3 months for groups 1 and 2, respectively. one patient in group 2 was treated with only three sessions of eswl. renal colic was observed in only five patients (17.9%). conclusions minijfil® stenting is safe and may be an alternative for the treatment of kidney stones during minimally invasive procedures. background percutaneous nephrolithotomy (pcnl) is recommended for treating staghorn stones or stones measuring > 20 mm. extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (eswl) or flexible ureteroscopy (urs) may be used as a complement. however, pcnl can cause trauma to the kidney parenchyma, and patients may find a noninvasive procedure, such as eswl, to be more attractive. objectives the aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical efficiency of minijfil® stenting associated with eswl or second-line urs for the treatment of medium-to-large kidney stones. the minijfil® is a stent reduced to a suture of 0.3f attached to a renal pigtail. the entire ureter is occupied only by the suture of the stent. methods we retrospectively analyzed the data of 28 patients. twenty-four patients had kidney stones measuring > 15 mm (group 1) and four patients had staghorn stones (group 2). all of the patients were fitted with minijfil® 2 - 3 weeks before any treatment. eswl was always our first-line therapy. stone-free (sf) status was defined as no evidence of stones.