Flexible ureteroscope with ultrasound guidance for treatment of parapelvic renal cysts: A complementary approach to locate the cystic wall
Abstract Background The main treatment of parapelvic cysts is flexible ureteroscope currently. Considering the intraoperative localization of the cyst may fail with flexible ureteroscope, we tend to use an innovative method by ultrasound-guided for easily locating cystic wall during flexible ureteroscopic surgery Methods We retrospectively reviewed 17 consecutive cases of parapelvic renal cysts treated by ultrasound-guided flexible ureteroscope between March 2017 and May 2020. The differences of simple flexible ureteroscopic technique and ultrasound-guided flexible ureteroscopic technique were compared. The surgical procedures, postoperative complications, results and patients’ follow-ups were evaluated. Results The cysts wall were seen clearly in 10 patients with ureteroscopic vision. Another 7 patients changed to ultrasound-guided flexible ureteroscopic surgery since it was difficult to identify the cyst wall. Mean operative time were 25.9 ± 8.7 minutes and 37.1 ± 10.1 minutes for conventional and modified technique respectively (P =0.004), of which 17.6 ± 5.8 minutes and 26.5 ± 8.4 minutes to search the cysts, respectively (P = 0.002), and the mean time of the incising were 7.1 ± 4.9 minutes and 12.1 ± 5.6 minutes, respectively (P = 0.000). All of the patients were followed-up 12 months, there were no serious complications and recurrence observed. Conclusions We demonstrated that it is feasible and safe to treat parapelvic renal cyst by ultrasound-guided flexible ureteroscopic incision and drainage. The less sample size and further studies were the limitations of our study.