THE EFFECT OF TAMSULOSIN ON STONE FREE RATE AFTER SWL (A Placebo Controlled Study

Abstract

Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) is a non invasive technique for the treatment of kidney stones. Most ESWL is carried out when the stone is present in the renal pelvis. ESWL involves the use of a lithotriptor machine to deliver externally applied, focused, high-intensity pulses of ultrasonic energy to cause fragmentation of a stone over a period of around 30–60 minutes. To evaluate the efficacy of alpha blocker (tamsulosin) to enhance stone fragments clearance from urinary tract after ESWL on renal pelvic stones. This is prospective randomized study which was carried out at urology department Ain Shams University Hospital during the period from August 2017 till July 2018. After hospital ethical committee approval, a total of 56 patients fulfilling inclusion criteria with symptomatic single renal pelvic radiopaque stone ≤ 1 cm were included in this study. All patients underwent ESWL therapy for their stone. Patients were randomized into two groups; group A (received tamsulosin 0.4 mg) and group B (received placebo). After two weeks of follow up PUT was done and revealed post ESWL SFR(stone free rate) on placebo group was 86.9 % and SFR on tamsulosin group was 92.5% (P value=0.2) (no statistically significant difference) on the other hand pos