Materials and Methods:
This retrospective study was conducted between April 2012 and January 2017 with patients who had undergone PCNL for staghorn stones. Patients with a skeletal deformity, congenital kidney anomalies, coagulopathy, and solitary kidneys, cases requiring multiple accesses, and patients without staghorn stones were excluded from the study. A total of 182 staghorn stones were divided into two groups according to patient age: those aged <65 years old were defined as Group-1 and those aged ≥65 years as Group-2. The demographic, perioperative and postoperative data were compared between these two groups.
All the patients were evaluated preoperatively using standard non-contrast abdominal computed tomography (CT). The patients’ demographic and preoperative characteristics, including operation side and history, stone burden, gender, metabolic syndrome, and stone density were recorded. In addition, intraoperative and postoperative results (operation and fluoroscopy time, nephroscopy time, calyx accessed, complications, and stone-free status) were examined. Postoperative complications were evaluated according to the Clavien scoring system (8).
After the urine culture of the patients was confirmed to be negative, they were taken to the operation room.
Stone burden was calculated in square millimeters in all patients (length x width x π x 0.25, where 3.14 was taken as the mathematical constant) (9). For staghorn stones, this calculation was performed separately for each calyceal stone and the sum of all values was accepted as the result. All PCNL operations were performed by experienced urologists. Success was considered as complete stoneless or detection of <4 mm stones on control CT performed at the first postoperative month.