Antegrade stent placement in laparoscopic upper urinary tract surgery. Is there an easy way?

Introduction
Antegrade placement of double J stents in laparoscopy is considered a challenging and time-consuming process due to limitations regarding stent flexibility.

Aim
To describe the method we used to facilitate the antegrade placement of intracorporeal stents in laparoscopic upper urinary tract (LUUT) surgery and report its results.

Material and methods
Data obtained from 42 consecutive patients who had stents placed antegradely in laparoscopic pyeloplasty or in laparoscopic ureterolithotomy for middle-upper ureteral stones were retrospectively evaluated. The mean age of the patients was 30.1 ±18.6 (10 months–68 years) and 13 patients were in the paediatric age group. All patients in the paediatric age group underwent laparoscopic pyeloplasty.

Results
The mean operative time for the 42 total cases, of which 32 underwent laparoscopic dismembered pyeloplasty and 10 laparoscopic ureterolithotomy, was 126.9 ±33.5 (70–200) min and the intraoperative stent placement time was calculated as 2.61 ±0.8 (1.5–5) min. The patients, who had a mean hospitalization time of 2.8 ±0.9 (2–5) months, required no additional interventions and no complications were encountered intraoperatively. In the patient series that had a mean follow-up time of 17.4 ±11.3 (1–35), it was determined only in 1 patient that the distal tip of the stent had not been in the bladder.

Conclusions
The described modified antegrade stent placement technique is a practical method that is safe for all LUUT cases in both paediatric and adult age groups and it has been shown to produce successful outcomes and to be time-saving.