[Evaluation of the results of extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy (ESWL) for solitary upper urinary tract stone].

At Osaka City University Hospital, we performed extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy (ESWL) for 1277 patients in a total of 1788 sessions using Dornier kidney lithotripter Model HM III from July, 1985 to the end of December, 1988. Among the patients with a solitary stone, 911 cases were available for the follow-up study and we have compared the results among these cases in respect to the stone location and size. The results obtained were as follows: the ratio of kidney stone to ureter stone was found to be 2.2:1 in male, and 3.8:1 in female patients. This indicates that ureter stones are more frequently found in male than in female patients. In addition, we compared the size of kidney stones found in the patients including 415 male and 243 female patients. Stones larger than 20 mm were more frequently found in female than in male patients. Moreover, a stone composition study of these patients showed that the contents of both phosphate calcium and magnesium ammonium phosphate were higher in female than in male patients. ESWL performed against stones at pelvis and calyces exhibited the best results. The results obtained with the stones less than 20 mm in diameter were especially favorable with a success rate of 100% for the stones less than 10 mm and 83% for the stones 10-20 mm, in diameter, while the results with the stones larger than 20 mm in diameter were rather poor with a success rate of 31%. ESWL performed against ureter stones showed poor results with a success rate of 63% for the stones smaller than 20 mm in diameter.