Comparison of Safety and Efficacy in Preventing Postoperative Infectious Complications of a 14/16F Ureteral Access Sheath with a 12/14F Ureteral Access Sheath in Flexible Ureteroscopic Lithotripsy.

Abstract

There are a variety of ureteral access sheath (UAS) lengths (13-55 cm) and diameters (9.5/11.5F-16/18F) available in the market. However, urologists are faced with a dilemma when choosing the ideal UAS diameter. Thus, we evaluated a case-control study of the efficacy and safety of 12/14F and 14/16F UASs in flexible ureteroscopic lithotripsy. A retrospective case-control study was evaluated with patients who were treated with flexible ureteroscopic lithotripsy for urinary calculi in a West China hospital from 2008 to 2017. Patients deployed a 12/14F UAS were divided into group A, and the others were divided into group B. The primary outcome was the postoperative infectious complication rate after the operation, including fever and sepsis. The second outcome included safety, lithotripsy time, and the stone-free rate. There were 1139 patients in total included in our study, with 593 patients divided into group A and 546 divided into group B. There was no significant difference between the baselines of the two groups' patients. The patients in group A had a significantly lower postoperative rate compared to the patients in group B (6.4% vs 1.6%). The 14/16F UAS also worked better in high-risk patients, such as patients with stones >2 cm or patients with infectious stones (7.6% vs 1.6%, 15.0% vs 3.1%, respectively). Our study found that the 14/16F UAS showed an obvious advantage in preventing postoperative infectious complications in flexible ureteroscopic lithotripsy compared to the 12/14F UAS.