Editorial Comment: The effect of shock wave lithotripsy and retrograde intrarenal surgery on health-related quality of life in 10-20 mm renal stones: a prospective randomized pilot study

Abstract

Patients with urolithiasis have significantly lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and the modality of treatment may also have impact on HRQoL (1). AUA and EAU Guidelines for stone disease consider stone free rate and complication rate in the recommendation for surgical management of urinary stones (2, 3). However, there are some clinical situations which the treatment modality has similar stone free rate and complication rate. Patient related outcomes such as HRQoL are rarely studied in randomized clinical trials (RCT) of stone intervention management and more high quality studies are welcome.Atis et al. compared the effect of retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS) and shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with renal stones between 10 and 20 mm (4). A total of 120 patients were prospectively randomized. Only successfully treated patients (75%, 45/60 in RIRS group and 60%, 36/60 in SWL group) were analyzed for HRQoL. SF-36 questionnaire was applied pre-operatively, post-operative day 1 (POD1) and 1 month after the procedure. At POD1, RIRS group was associated with lower scores of role functioning/physical (p=0.008), role functioning/emotional (p=0.047) energy/fatigue (p=0.011), social functioning (p=0.003) and pain (p=0.003) when compared to the SWL group. At post-operative 1