Outpatient ureteroscopic lithotripsy: selective internal stenting and factors enhancing success.

Purpose: To evaluate a policy of selective, short-duration internal stenting after outpatient ureteroscopic laser lithotripsy. Patients and Methods: From January 1997 to April 1998, 62 patients (34 male, 28 female) with a mean age of 50 (range 21-80) years underwent outpatient ureteroscopic lithotripsy using a holmium laser (365 μm; 0.5-1.4J/5-10 Hz) and 6F/7.5F semirigid ureteroscope. Internal stents were inserted selectively in patients with severe preoperative obstruction (intravenous urogram finding), tight stone impaction (endoscopic finding), or significant residual obstruction (on-table retrograde pyelogram finding) despite stone clearance. Patient demographics, stone measures, stone clearance rates, complications, postoperative pain scores, analgesic requirement, and follow-up imaging were compared for the stented and unstented patients. Results: With the present criteria of selective internal stenting, stents were inserted in 56% of the patients for a mean duration of 3.6 weeks. Excluding those p...