Vinh City General Hospital: Laparoscopic surgery to remove kidney stones effectively and safely

Secrets to safely remove kidney stones

Kidney stones are a common disease, occurring in the age group of 30 - 60, with a tendency to become younger and increase. Kidney stones account for about 30% of urinary tract diseases.

Kidney stones, if detected early and treated promptly, are not dangerous, but can affect quality of life and lead to kidney failure.

Today's medicine offers many advanced methods for treating kidney stones, from traditional open surgery to less invasive methods such as percutaneous nephrolithotomy or retrograde nephrolithotomy with a flexible endoscope. Retrograde nephrolithotomy with a flexible endoscope is considered one of the most advanced techniques. As a treatment method that requires high techniques, it is only performed at hospitals with specialized departments in urology. Recently, at Vinh City General Hospital, this technique has been performed regularly with high efficiency.

Patient PVN (47 years old) came to the clinic because of persistent dull pain in the left flank. The diagnosis showed that the patient had left kidney stones/polycystic kidney disease; with a large left kidney stone size of 20x23mm. The doctor prescribed endoscopic retrograde cholelithotomy with flexible tubes.

Accordingly, the team of doctors from the General Surgery Department used a large-range endoscope, inserted from the lower urinary tract up to the upper urinary tract to the ureter and renal pelvis, using a laser energy wire through the machine's working channel to break up the stones. The stones will be broken up by a high-power laser energy stream. The crushed stones will pass through the urine to exit the body. The surgery only took 1 hour and the patient was discharged after 2 days.

Modern endoscopic techniques effectively and safely remove kidney stones, completely removing stones with many outstanding advantages: limited invasion, going through the body's natural path, no skin incisions to increase aesthetics; helps to preserve maximum kidney function due to less impact on kidney parenchyma, especially in cases of polycystic kidney; rare complications; short hospital stay (1-2 days); patients recover quickly and reintegrate into the community.

Building a regional Urology - Nephrology - Andrology and Pelvic Floor Center

According to Doctor CKII.Tran Duc Trong - Head of General Surgery Department, currently, the department is implementing methods to treat kidney stones. Flexible retrograde nephrolithotomy is indicated in the following cases: optimal for renal pelvis stones less than 20mm in size, simple, combined or multiple stones. With large kidney stones > 20mm, the effectiveness will gradually decrease; residual kidney stones, recurrence after open surgery; upper ureteral stones pushed back to the kidney when treatment methods fail; high back ureteral stones are indicated for one-time flexible endoscope lithotripsy...

As a treatment method that requires high technology, the Department of General Surgery has invested in a modern medical equipment system such as: 4K laparoscopic surgery system with sharp images; high-power laser lithotripsy machine (100W). At the same time, the team of doctors and nurses are trained in depth in the field of urology; contributing to improving the quality and professionalism in medical examination and treatment activities.

With the goal of focusing on developing the field of urology and urology to become one of the key specialties, Vinh City General Hospital has separated into a urology unit in the Department of General Surgery.

Discussing the future direction, Doctor CKII Pham Van Son - Deputy Director of the Hospital affirmed: "On the basis of the well-developed urology unit, in the coming time, the hospital will establish a Center for Urology - Nephrology - Andrology and Pelvic Floor with a scale of 60 beds, including the exocrine system and the internal kidney dialysis.

The hospital has prepared human resources, organized training courses, attracted high-quality human resources from major medical universities nationwide; at the same time, focused on investing in blood filtration equipment, high-capacity lithotripsy machines, endoscopic surgery equipment, etc. to move towards performing more complex intervention techniques. The hospital's goal is to develop into a Center for Urology - Nephrology - Andrology and Pelvic Floor, meeting the needs of high-quality medical examination and treatment of people in the province and the region."