Effectiveness and morbidity of concomitant bilateral percutaneous nephrolithotomy (about 20 cases)

Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCN) has become the technique of choice for the treatment of large stones larger than 2 cm or after failure of other techniques. Thus, its unilateral performance has become a routine technique, but bilateral percutaneous nephrolithotomy in one stage is not common practice. This therapeutic option appears attractive in patients at high risk of recurrence and unable to tolerate a two-stage PCN, however it must be performed in expert reference centers. The objective of our study is to retrospectively evaluate the efficacy and morbidity of concomitant bilateral percutaneous nephrolithotomy and to compare the results of our series with those of an extensive and recent review of the literature. This is a retrospective study including 20 cases of concomitant bilateral percutaneous nephrolithotomy performed between January 2011 and January 2023. The mean age was 47.4 years. These were 14 men and 6 women, all had bilateral kidney stones. The mean stone size was 28.8 cm, of which 11 were coralliform. We obtained a good result (Stone-free) in 17 patients with an average duration of 130 min, the residual stones required additional treatment in 3 cases by extracorporeal lithotripsy (ECL).the main complications encountered were hemorrhagic (1 case) and infectious (2 cases), the renal function is unchanged in the end. The results of our series are consistent with those of the literature with a success rate of 85% without residual fragments greater than 4 mm.