Risk Factors for Failure of Endoscopic Management of Stone-related Ureteral Strictures

Purpose: To investigate factors determining the outcomes of endoscopic management for stone-related ureteral stricture. Materials and Methods: Data of patients who underwent endoscopic surgery for ureteral stricture due to stones from January 2016 to April 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. We compared cases successfully treated with endoscopic surgery with cases that resulted in failure. We focused on factors associated with treatment success, including cause and length of stricture, methods of stricture treatment, surgical time, and duration of hydronephrosis before the treatment. Treatment success was defined as improvement in hydronephrosis status. Results: Nineteen patients were treated for stone-related ureteral stricture. Hydronephrosis was successfully improved in 12 patients (63.2%). Seven patients with failed endoscopic management had ureteroscopic lithotripsy- related stricture, whereas 3/12 (25.0%) patients with ureteroscopic lithotripsy-related stricture and 7/12 (58.3%) patients with impacted stone-related stricture were successfully treated by endoscopic management (P = .004). The prevalence of stricture length 15 mm was significantly higher in the patients with failed management than in the patients with successful management (71.4 vs 16.6%, P = .046). Intraoperative endoscopic observation demonstrated that the mucosa of the ureteroscopic lithotripsy-related stricture had ischemic appearance with relatively long stricture length (P = 0.13) compared to the impacted stone-related stricture. No association was observed between treatment outcome and method of endoscopic management, including laser incision, balloon dilation, or both. Conclusion: Ureteroscopic lithotripsy as a cause and stricture length 15 mm could affect the success rate of endoscopic management of ureteral stricture. In such cases, reconstructive management should probably be considered in the early stages.