Most reports utilized retrospective reviews or historic data to compare older lithotripters to newer models. In an abstract submitted from Bern, Switzerland, Zehnder et al. performed a prospective randomize study comparing various treatment outcomes between a modified HM3 Lithotripter with a newer generation model. This is one of the first studies to perform this type of comparison.
In this study, which examined the outcomes for over 800 patients treated with either modified Dornier HM3 versus the Storz Modulith® SLX-F2, the authors found that the HM3 required fewer shock waves, less flouroscopy times, required fewer ESWL retreatments and resulted in fewer kidney hematomas. Overall, stone free rates were greater than 67% for both units at 3 months in patients with solitary kidney stones. Solitary lower pole stones also had similar success rates of 63% at 3 months, while solitary ureteral stones had successes greater than 90% in both units at 3 months. These results suggest reasonable results for shock wave lithotripsy using with unit.
Finally, the authors should be commended for producing one of only a few large scale studies that have prospectively randomized patients to different lithotripters as a head to head comparison.
Presented by Pascal Zehnder, et al. at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 14 - 19, 2011 - Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC USA
Reported for UroToday by Phillip Mucksavage, MD, Department of Urology, University of California, Irvine.
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