A prospective comparative study to evaluate safety and efficacy of pneumatic versus laser lithotripsy in mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy.

Objective: The choice of lithotripter is an important part of planning in mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy (mini perc) as the operating time is prolonged due to reduced sheath size and smaller working channel. Previous studies mostly reported the use of laser lithotripter for stone fragmentation while the literature on pneumatic lithotripter use in miniperc is scant.

Methods: In this study, we compared the efficacy and safety of the laser lithotripter (LL) vs pneumatic lithotripter (PL) in miniperc for small to medium-sized renal/upper ureteric stones (size: 1-2 cm).