ESWL Extracorporal

As we in the Washington Metropolitan Area know, we live in the stone belt. This, area is very high in recurring stone problems. Possibly because of the high humidity in, the summer along with something in our drinking water and habits. However, there is, great news for stone sufferers. In the past, kidney stones often required surgery and, long hospital stays. These days, however, are over. The newest technique, Extracorporal Shockwave Lithotripsy or ESWL, allows doctors to treat stones anywhere, in the urinary tract with minimally invasive techniques.

Shockwave Lithotripsy has evolved over the years to be the number one treatment for stone disease. Where as in the past, it required general anesthesia and being placed in a tub of water for 1 1/2 to 2 hours to treat the stone. New techniques have come along which allow the patient to lie on a comfortable bed, taking some intravenous sedation and using ultrasound or sound waves to the area of the stone which causes the stone to shake and break with the result of turning the stone into pieces of sand. These small pieces will pass on their own through the urinary tract.

Patients are able to get off the table and within a day get back to work full steam ahead. The beauty of this technique is  that we can treat stones in the kidney, in the ureter (with a tube that runs from the kidney to bladder), or even in the bladder itself without any needing any surgical intervention. Once we retrieve the fragments of stone that the individual passes we can evaluate the stones and begin what we call metabolic workup or chemical workup of each individual to be able to identify the cause of the stone. This helps us to afford the patient preventative treatment so that recurrence of stones is minimized.

Once again, the ESWL has changed our outlook towards stone disease. No more do patients need to be hospitalized for prolonged periods of time. Or have drainage tubes out the side to prevent blockage of the kidney stone fragments. Most importantly, outpatient minimally invasive techniques allow the individual to come home and back to work full steam ahead.

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Willis & Melograna M.D. P.C.
7801 Belle Point Drive
Greenbelt, MD. 20770
Phone: (301) 474-3636
Fax: (301) 513-5087
E-mail: wm-eurology@verizon.net