Factors Affecting Fragmentation and Clearance of stones after shock wave lithotripsy

Abstract

Background:
The applying of ESWL is widely extended from kidney stone to the most of urinary tract stones.  
Objective:  
the aim of the current study is to find the correlation between the location and the stone size with the efficiency of ESWL.  Materials and Methods:  
Data  were  collected  from  patients  in  ESWL  unit  in  urology department in Al-Karkh general hospital for three years, starting December 2017 until December 2020. The number of patient was (174)  patient  divided  into  two  groups,  first  group  (G1)  with average stone size 12 mm while it was 14 mm for the second group (G2). The shocks used of the frequency of 90 shock/minute start up at 9 KV with escalated does increase to 18 KV till fragmentation of  stone or till reach of average 3000 shocks for real stone on upper ureteric stone per session up to 3 session.
Results:  
the collected data found that the best fragmentation was in the lower stone location (G2) 95.45% followed by the upper location 93.33%, and middle one 85.71%, the same sequence is for G1, 90.00%, 76.47% and 66.66% respectively same finding sequence with the clearance.  
Conclusions: ESWL affected with stone size, and location, the larger stone size the better fragmentation and clearance.