WISQOL is internally consistent and discriminates among patients with different stone statuses and symptoms. WISQOL is externally valid across the North American population. It may be used for multicenter health related quality of life studies in kidney stone disease.

No abstract

In a contemporary cohort of patients, metabolic stones comprised a large proportion of complete staghorn calculi. In our series calcium phosphate was the most common stone composition noted. Metabolic stones should be considered during the evaluation of staghorn calculi, and our results underscore the importance of stone analysis and subsequent metabolic evaluation in these patients.

No abstract

Despite concern for excessive radiation exposure, urologists should recognize limitations of US in the evaluation of urolithiasis. As the ideal study to image stones, particularly for routine surveillance, remains unclear, tese data also supports the need for low-dose NCCT protocols and/or selective use of alternative modalities, such as magnetic resonance urography.

Robotic reconstruction of the ureter distal to the UPJ is feasible, safe, effective, and able to replicate techniques of open surgery with equivalent outcomes to large robotic pyeloplasty and smaller distal ureteral reconstruction series.

No abstract

An initial point-based alignment followed by an iterative closest point registration is a feasible method of registering preoperative image (CT) space to intraoperative physical (robot) space. Although rigid registration provides utility for image-guidance, local deformations in regions of resection may be more significant. Computer models may be useful for prediction of such deformations, but more investigation is needed to establish the necessity of such compensation.