Does treatment of non-obstructing nephrolithiasis reduce recurrent urinary tract infections?

A prospective, observational trial from the EDGE consortium

Auteurs-es

  • Connor M. Forbes University of British Columbia
  • Karen L. Stern
  • Jame Finegan
  • Amy Reed
  • Gopal Narang
  • Kevin Wymer
  • Jonathan Moore
  • Jonathan Berger
  • K
  • Kimberly Maciolek
  • Tatsuki Koyama
  • Aaron Lee
  • Ben H. Chew
  • Nicole L. Miller
  • Seth K. Bechis
  • Roger L. Sur
  • Ryan S. Hsi

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.5489/cuaj.9741

Mots-clés :

Kidney stone, Nephrolithiasis, Urologic Infection

Résumé

Introduction: Existing studies link kidney stone treatment to reduced recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs); however, these studies are limited by their retrospective design and/or lack of comparison group. The present study assesses a prospective observational cohort of patients with recurrent UTIs who selected observation or intervention for management of their non-obstructing kidney stones to assess for impact on UTI recurrence.

Methods: From 2020−2025, patients with non-obstructing kidney stones and recurrent UTIs were prospectively enrolled at four centers. After shared decision-making, participants underwent observation or surgical intervention. The primary outcome was UTI recurrence at 12 months post-enrollment, defined as presence of urinary tract symptoms with positive urine culture. The study was powered to detect a 50% reduction in the rate of UTI recurrence between the groups at 12 months.

Results: Among 94 patients recruited, followup data at 12 months was available for 21 observation and 46 intervention patients. There were more staghorn stones in the intervention group (15.2% vs. 0%), and the median stone size was larger (13.5 vs. 6 mm). At 12 months, 81% (n=17) in the observation group and 54% (n=25) in the intervention group had a symptomatic UTI recurrence (p=0.06, non-significant). The subgroup (n=17) of stone-free intervention patients had fewer UTI recurrences compared to the observation group (odds ratio 0.12, 95% confidence interval 0.02−0.66). Causation cannot be confirmed due to the observational nature of the study.

Conclusions: For patients with recurrent UTIs and stones, surgical intervention is not associated with decreased risk of UTI recurrence at 12 months overall; however, patients who were stone-free after intervention had significantly fewer UTI recurrences on subgroup analysis.

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Biographie de l'auteur-e

Connor M. Forbes, University of British Columbia

Publié-e

2026-07-07

Comment citer

Forbes, C. M., Stern, K. L., Finegan, J., Reed, A., Narang, G., Wymer, K., … Hsi, R. S. (2026). Does treatment of non-obstructing nephrolithiasis reduce recurrent urinary tract infections? A prospective, observational trial from the EDGE consortium. Canadian Urological Association Journal, 20(10). https://doi.org/10.5489/cuaj.9741

Numéro

Rubrique

Original Research