ORIGINAL ARTICLE Isra Med J. | Vol 11 - Issue 4 | Jul – Aug 2019 218 Endourological treatment of ureteral stone: a quasi-experimental comparative study at public sector hospital focusing on assessment of holmium: Yag laser with pneumatic lithotripsy Zakir Hussain Rajpar 1 , Imran Memon 2 , Kashifuddin Qayoom Soomro 1 , Afhan Qayoom 2 ABSTRACT Objective: To assess the efficacy of Holmium: YAG laser in comparison with pneumatic lithotripsy for the management of ureteral stones. Study Design: A quasi-experimental comparative study Place and Duration: Urology Department, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro, from 1 st January 2015 to 31 st January 2016. Methodology: Total of 100 patients were categorized into 2 equal groups. All the patients who were having radio opaque stones of 10mm to 15 mm size underwent ureteroscopy. Stone size and location was confirmed by doing ultrasound KUB (kidney ureter and bladder), X- Ray KUB and CT KUB with different combinations. In Group A, 1mm probe of pneumatic lithotripsy was used to section the stone and in Group B Holmium YAG laser 600-micronfiber size was used. Patients were followed those with residual stones were labeled as failure. Results: Stones clearance was 64% in Group A (Pneumatic lithoclast). While in Group B (Ho: YAG laser lithotripsy) 94% of the patients had stone clearance with a significant p-value of 0.006 Conclusion: The utilization of Holmium: YAG laser lithotripsy is a better and effective modality than pneumatic lithoclast. Keywords: Ureteric stone, Radio opaque, Endourological Treatment, Pneumatic lithotripsy, YAG laser, Efficacy How to Cite This: Rajpar ZH, Memon II, Soomro KQ, Qayoom A. Endourological treatment of ureteral stone: a quasi-experimental comparative study at public sector hospital focusing on assessment of holmium: Yag laser with pneumatic lithotripsy. Isra Med J. 2019; 11(4): 218-221. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. INTRODUCTION Kidney stone disease also known as Urolithiasis is 2 to 3 times more come in male gender as compared to females, predominantly occurring in middle aged persons and accounts for more than half of all the admissions in urology department of tertiary care hospital in Karachi 1 . Endourology is one of rapidly evolving field of surgical sciences, it’s been dream in last century to develop certain type of equipment to minimize surgical morbidity and to avoid cutting. It was observed that an intervention is needed for the ureteral calculi which do not respond to conventional treatment. The management of stones of ureter must be assessed in terms of typical efficacy and safety and accomplishment rates including the viability of the technique, number of sessions that are needed for complete removal of stone, rate of complications, and the necessities of the removal of the stones. Nevertheless, the However, the recognition of popularity of every technique is usually evaluated by the cost affectivity, particularly in developing countries 2 . Improvements in ureteroscope design (semirigid and small diameter scopes) have resulted in better outcomes. The two most commonly used ureteroscopic modalities for stone disintegration are pneumatic and laser lithotripsy 3 . In a meta-analysis conducted in 2017, Pneumatic Lithotripsy was compared with Holmium YAG laser lithotripsy in a total of eight studies with a total of 1,555 participants. It was found that Holmium YAG LL reduced the mean operative time, significantly 4 . In another study, it was reported that both Laser Lithotripsy and Pneumatic Lithotripsy had a comparably high success rate in the management of ureteral stones. However, 1. Assistant professor of Urology, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro. 2. Post graduate Student of Urology, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro. Correspondence: Dr. Imran Memon Assistant Professor of Urology, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro. Email: drmemon.imran@gmail.com Received for Publication: May 18, 2018 1 st Revision of Manuscript: July 21, 2018 2 nd Revision of Manuscript: January 23, 2019 3 rd Revision of Manuscript: May 27, 2019 Accepted for Publication: August 06, 2019