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Concept
Laser lithotripsy
Summary
Laser lithotripsy is a surgical procedure to remove stones from urinary tract, i.e., kidney, ureter, bladder, or urethra.
Laser lithotripsy was invented at the Wellman Center for Photo medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1980s to remove impacted urinary stones. Optical fibers carry light pulses that pulverize the stone. Candela licensed the technology and released the first commercial laser lithotripsy system. Initially 504 nm dye lasers were used, then holmium lasers were studied in the 1990s.
A urologist inserts a scope into the urinary tract to locate the stone. The scope may be a cystoscope, ureteroscope, renoscope or nephroscope. An optical fiber is inserted through the working channel of the scope, and laser light is directly emitted to the stone. The stone is fragmented and the remaining pieces are collected in a "basket" and/or washed out of the urinary tract, along with the finer particulate "dust."
The procedure is done under either local or general anesthesia and is considered a minimally-invasive procedure. It is widely available in most hospitals in the world.
Laser lithotripsy (LL) has been evaluated against Extracorporeal Shock Wave lithotripsy (ESWL), finding both to be safe and effective. ESWL may be safer for small stones ( 2 cm) with good stone-free and complication rates.
Holmium laser lithotripsy had superior initial success and re-treatment rate compared to extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) in a 2013 trial.
The experimental thulium fiber laser (TFL) is being studied as a potential alternative to the holmium:YAG (Ho:YAG) laser for the treatment of kidney stones. The TFL has several potential advantages compared to Ho:YAG laser for lithotripsy, including a four times lower ablation threshold, a near single-mode beam profile, and higher pulse rates, resulting in up to four times as fast ablation rates and faster procedural times.
Official source
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