Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy in Children: 17 Years of Experience

Purpose: We analyzed factors that might affect outcome in terms of success and incidence of complications in children up to 17 years after undergoing percutaneous nephrolithotomy.Materials and Methods: The data of 346 renal units (294 patients) were analyzed in terms of postoperative outcome. Factors investigated that might affect outcome were patient gender, age, stone laterality, largest stone size, stone burden, number of stones, location of a single stone, previous intervention and instrument size.Results: Mean ± SD patient age was 8.51 ± 4.91 years, and male-to-female ratio was 209:137. Mean ± SD stone burden was 3.49 ± 3.3 cm2. Stone-free rates after a single procedure were 84.4% and 73.1% in patients with and without clinically insignificant residual stones, respectively. On univariate and multivariate analyses stone burden and number of stones affected the stone-free rate. Complications consisted of bleeding in 41 patients (11.8%), postoperative urinary tract infection in 21 (6%), urosepsis in 4 (...