TY - JOUR AU - Abdelaziz, Hamdoune AU - Elabiad, Yassine AU - Aderrouj, Ilyas AU - Janane, Abdellatif AU - Ghadouane, Mohamed AU - Ameur, Ahmed AU - Abbar, Mohamed PY - 2014/08/11 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The usefulness of stone density and patient stoutness in predicting extracorporeal shock wave efficiency: Results in a North African ethnic group JF - Canadian Urological Association Journal JA - CUAJ VL - 8 IS - 7-8 SE - Case Series DO - 10.5489/cuaj.1849 UR - https://cuaj.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1849 SP - e567-9 AB - <p class="Style"><strong>Introduction: </strong>We determine the role of stone density and skin-to-stone distance (SSD) by non-contrast computed tomography of the kidneys, ureters and bladder (CT-KUB) in predicting the success of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL).</p><p class="Style"><strong>Methods: </strong>We evaluated 89 patients who received ESWL for renal and upper ureteric calculi measuring 5 to 20 mm, over a 12-month period. The mean stone density in Hounsfield units (HU) and mean SSD in mm was determined on pre-treatment CT-KUB at the CT workstation. ESWL was successful if post-treatment residual stone fragments were ≤3 mm.</p><p class="Style"><strong>Results:</strong> ESWL success was observed in 68.5% of patients. Mean stone densities were 505 ± 153 and 803 ± 93 HU in the ESWL successful and failure groups, respectively (p &lt; 0.001, student’s t-test). The mean SSD were 10.6 ± 2.0 and 11.2 ± 2.6 cm in ESWL successful and failure groups, respectively; this was not statistically significant.</p><p class="Style"><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study shows that stone density can help to predict the outcome of ESWL. We propose that stone density &lt;500 HU are highly likely to result in successful ESWL. Conversely, stone densities &gt;800 HU are less likely to be successful.</p> ER -