Doctors at KIMS Kurnool Remove 2 Kidney Stones from a 4 year old boy

Doctors at KIMS Kurnool Hospital saved life of a 4-year-old boy by performing retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS). The child had 2 kidney stones measuring 1.2 cm in right side and another in the left side measuring 1.1cm. The Retrograde renal procedure was done on both the sides within 15 days gap along with stenting to relieve the kid from pain and bring him back to normal life.

Speaking to the media, Dr. Manoj Kumar Y, Consultant Urologist, KIMS Kurnool Hospitals, said, “The case of Kidney stones at the pediatric stage has become more common in past decade and have been steadily increasing. This increase may be due to many reasons like genetic, metabolic, dietary, anatomical or idiopathic. For this little child both the stones are measuring more than 1 cm and needed immediate attention and removal. We have taken up a procedure called RIRS (Retrograde intrarenal surgery). In this procedure, the surgery is performed within the kidney using a viewing tube called a fiberoptic endoscope to remove the stone. This is a endoscopic procedure which is a quick fix in place of open surgery. This endoscopic surgery also lessens the pain, hospital stay and helps in speedy recovery.”

Generally, management of stones in pediatric population is difficult because of small size of the internal organs and associated metabolic abnormalities. Renal stone management have multiple options like ESWL,PCNL, RIRS, laparoscopic surgery and Open Surgery. ESWL is noninvasive procedure, but it may require multiple sessions and high radiation exposure, also cannot provide 100% success rate for large stone which is more than 10 mm in children.PCNL in which we have to puncture the kidney may cause bleeding in fragile kidneys of children and is not suggested unless the stone is large size of more than 2 cm. Hence, RIRS is the procedure of choice, in this case as the patient need surgery on both the sides. RIRS which can be done completely through urethra without any cut on the body.Advantages of the RIRS are it is a pain less procedure and patient can be discharged on the next day.

“RIRS in children requires necessary high-end equipment like holmium laser and flexible scope which is available with us. Procedure needs high expertise. Availability of best pediatric team and anesthesia team also made our job successful. Cases like these are taken to cities like Hyderabad, but with the availability of infrastructure and expertise, we are doing this procedure regularly for children and we are handling many complicated cases. We are happy to be the first center in Kurnool to successfully perform pediatric RIRS,” he added.