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

Secret to safely remove kidney stones

Kidney stones are a common disease, affecting people between the ages of 30 and 60, and are on the rise. 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 technology, it is only implemented 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 a dull pain in the left flank that lasted for a long time. 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 renal lithotripsy 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 crush the stones. The stones will be crushed 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; few 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 kidney stone treatment methods. Flexible retrograde nephrolithotomy is indicated in the following cases: optimal for renal pelvis stones less than 20mm in size, single, combined or multiple stones. With large kidney stones > 20mm in size, 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 endoscopic 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 orientation, 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 internal kidney dialysis.

The hospital has prepared human resources, organized training courses, attracted high-quality human resources from major medical universities in the country; at the same time, focused on investing in blood filtration equipment, high-capacity lithotripsy machines, endoscopic surgery equipment, etc. to perform 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."