Dr. Seftel Explains: What is Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) for Kidney Stones?

Описание: People who have suffered from kidney stones rarely forget the experience. “About 12% of Americans experience kidney stones,” says Allen Seftel, MD, FACS. “And, once you’ve had one, you are 50% more likely to have another within 10 years.”

A treatment offered for some patients with kidney stones is called Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL). Shock waves sound intense, so we asked Dr. Seftel what patients should know about it.

“[ESWL] has been around for many, many years. It's very safe and very effective. Essentially, you lay on a table in the operating room, you're given some type of anesthesia, whether it's in general anesthesia with a tube in your throat or a local anesthesia to your abdomen and with sedation. And then we find the stone using X ray equipment and then bringing in a special shockwave machine to break up the stone. The procedure itself takes about 30 to 45 minutes because we have to do it at a certain rate in order to maximize the benefit of the shockwave on the kidney stone.”

Learn more about kidney stones, including risk factors and prevention, in our recent blog post: https://blogs.cooperhealth.org/ehealt...

Allen D. Seftel, MD, FACS is a urologist at Cooper University Health Care and MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper, and Professor of Surgery at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. His full profile is available here: https://www.cooperhealth.org/doctors/...

More information about Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL): https://www.cooperhealth.org/services...