What is PCNL surgery?

Its one of the minimal invasive procedure done to remove kidney stones which are too large to be removed by other laser procedures.

What is the procedure steps?

• Kidney stone is reached through a hole approx 10 mm made near the kidney area and stone is visualised using flouroscopy.
• After the stone is reached, laser energy is passed through ureteroscope and this fragments the stone into fine particles.
• These particles are evacuated using a vacuum and the region is confirmed by flouroscopy to be stone free.
• At times a dye is used to localised the stone and outilne it clearly.

How successful is this procedure ?
The success rate is very hight about more than 95 percent in most cases.

In which cases this procedure is needed?

• When the size of stone is more than 28 mm and is of staghorn shape.
• When the patient has undergone ESWL but the stone was resistant to it.
• Few cases in which the stone is smaller but patient needs a single time procedure unlike ESWL.

Cases where RIRS is costly for the pocket.
Does it have any complications?

• Few complications though not very common are continued bleeding , damage to internal organs, damage to kidney tissue. And renal infection which becomes chronic.

What is the cost?

• PCNL cost is generally 40 thousand to 1,20,000 depending on the hospital and presence of any associated medical condition along with stone.