The University Children’s Hospital in Kraków received a holmium laser device to treat urological disorders, such as kidney stone disease (urolithiasis). It was fist used on 1 March 2018, when Prof. Rafał Chrzan, head of the urology department, removed stones from the urinary bladder of a six-year-old boy.
Kidney stone disease in children is far less common in than in adults. It is also a more complex phenomenon. The formation of stones is facilitated by urinary stasis caused by inborn urinary tract defects. The risk factors also include metabolic disorders and genetic predisposition.
Holmium laser is a very effective and safe means of lithotripsy, that is, breaking up urinary calculi. During the intervention, a urologist inserts the endoscope through urethra. After locating the stones, the physician breaks them up with a laser beam. Their small fragments are then rinsed off from the urinary tract.
“The intervention takes no more than one hour to complete and allows to avoid an invasive surgery ... The laser will be used to help children with urinary tract diseases from the entire Małopolska. So far, the paediatric patients had to be sent to medical centres outside the region to undergo such treatment”, explains Prof. Chrzan, adding that the next goal will be to obtain funds for a ureterorenoscope allowing complex treatment of kidney stone disease in youngest patients.
