What are the advantages of ureteroscopy for kidney stones?

  Kidney stones are one of the common diseases in urology. According to statistics, the incidence of kidney stones is 5% to 15%, and the recurrence rate is as high as 50%. Early kidney stones can cause urinary tract obstruction and infection, and later will cause kidney function damage and endanger patients’ lives.  At present, the main method of minimally invasive surgery for kidney stones in China is percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), which is a surgical method for treating kidney stones by combining percutaneous nephrostomy with ultrasound and pneumatic ballistic lithotripsy under the guidance of ultrasound or X-ray, with the advantages of short operation time and high stone removal rate, but requires the establishment of “percutaneous channels However, it requires the establishment of “percutaneous access” (entering the renal pelvis through the skin, muscle and renal parenchyma respectively), which is prone to complications such as haemorrhage, infection and urinary extravasation.  In recent years, with the development of lumpectomy and optics, ureteroscopic lithotripsy (URL) has been gradually applied to the treatment of kidney stones in clinical practice. “It is particularly advantageous in the treatment of scoliosis combined with kidney stones, isolated kidney combined with kidney stones, horseshoe kidney combined with kidney stones, obesity combined with kidney stones, kidney stones in children, kidney stones during pregnancy and other complex kidney stones.