Audit of the Acute Management of Renal Colic in District Hospitals Within a National Health Service Trust.

Introduction: Renal colic is a prevalent acute urological emergency caused by urinary stones and commonly manifests as severe loin pain. This audit assesses the management of acute renal colic at a National Health Service (NHS) Trust in the West Midlands, England, comparing practices against the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) guidelines.

Method: This retrospective audit reviewed 417 patients with suspected renal colic over a month. Data collected included patients' demographics, time to complete CT scan, laboratory investigations requested and management modalities. Patients assessed were either admitted through the Emergency Department, Surgical Assessment Unit, or previously admitted for other conditions on the wards. The audit benchmarked against NICE and BAUS guidelines, focusing on diagnostic timeliness and management, including essential blood investigations. Data analysis performed using SPSS (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) included descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests, with significance set at p < 0.05.

Results: A total of 417 patients met the inclusion criteria. The average age of patients was 47.4 years with slightly higher male population (51.1%). The diagnostic rate for renal or ureteric stones using computed tomography of the kidneys, ureters, and bladder (CT-KUB) was 41.2%. The positive detection rate was significantly higher in males (54%) compared to females (27.5%) while females have more alternate diagnosis than males (13.7% vs 6.1%). The average completion time of CT-KUB was nine hours with 7.7% of patients having their CT-KUB beyond the 24-hour benchmark. Most patients (48%) were managed conservatively with analgesia, 32% received tamsulosin as medical expulsive therapy and others had interventions like ureteric stent insertion (9.3%), nephrostomy (6.4%) or primary ureteroscopy (4.1%).

Conclusion: The audit of renal colic management at our centre revealed a 41.2% diagnostic rate for renal or ureteric stones via CT-KUB, with a significantly higher rate in males than females. Diagnostic delays were minimal, with only 7.7% of scans exceeding 24 hours. Conservative management was common, however non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were underutilized despite guideline recommendations. There was a notable gender disparity in diagnostic and alternate findings rates. The results showed the need for adherence to pain management protocols and highlight the effectiveness of existing renal colic protocol, while also pointing to potential areas for improvement in treatment uniformity and guideline adherence.