Introduction
Urinary stones are a group of diseases that occupy the agenda of the
medical world with both their frequency and high recurrence
rates.1 Over the last 60 years, great strides have
been made in urinary stone treatment, and in the previous two decades,
endoscopic surgeries have taken the lead in
treatment.2,3
Ureterorenoscopy (URS) and flexible ureterorenoscopy (fURS) are commonly
used surgical methods in ureter stone treatment. Although it is not
possible to cure kidney stones with URS, since the introduction of fURS,
even kidney stones can be treated endoscopically when accessed through
the urethral meatus.2 One of the most important
advantages of fURS in ureter stone treatment is that stone push-up that
could cause the termination of URS in the past does so no longer.
Nowadays, if a stone is pushed up, surgeons can stop performing URS and
begin using fURS to treat stones in the kidney, allowing surgeries to be
completed successfully.4,5
Different techniques and devices have been used to mitigate the push-up
problem.6,7 However, it is not clear if these methods
are truly necessary with today’s technology. To go a step further and
dust the stone after pushing it into the kidney instead of dusting it in
a narrow area in the ureter might be more advantageous. In this study,
our aim is to compare the clinical parameters of semirigid URS (srURS)
in the upper ureter with fURS for upper ureteral stones which are
pushed-up during srURS perioperatively.