Bladder Stones


Email Raji.Kooner@svha.org.au or call 02 8382 6980 for a confidential appointment.

Bladder stones are often caused because the prostate is enlarged and causing a blockage to the flow.1

Traditionally they’ve been treated with either an open operation or with some form of crushing of the stone.2

The problem with crushing of the stone is that there’s a lot of trauma given to, to the side wall of the bladder.3

I have been doing holmium laser vaporisations of these large stones and have done a lot of patients with very large stones where we put the laser in through the urethra and vaporise this large stone and turn it into dust. 

And this is a remarkable difference for patients.4

They’re out of hospital day 1 as opposed to a big recovery with an open operation.4

So holmium laser vaporisation of the prostate is a treatment that I believe should be offered to patients with bladder stones.

References

1. NHS - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bladder-stones/causes/
2. NHS - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bladder-stones/treatment/
3. Isaac A. Deswanto, Ari Basukarno, Ponco Birowo, et al - Management of bladder stones: the move towards non-invasive treatment - https://doi.org/10.13181/mji.v26i2.1602 Med J Indones. 2017;26:128–33
4. Jie Lv, Ning Wang, Yongsheng Zhu, et al - A meta-analysis and systematic review of holmium laser treatment of bladder stones - Transl Androl Urol. 2021 Aug; 10(8): 3465–3475. doi: 10.21037/tau-21-563