Annual Check-Up
Dr. Justin Ziemba
Video Transcript
Hello everyone.
Thanks for allowing us
to answer your questions about kidney stones.
My name is Justin Ziemba
and I’m an assistant professor of urology and surgery
and my area of expertise is kidney stone disease.
We had a wonderful question from the community about how
to follow up with imaging
after you’re diagnosed with kidney stones.
So this is actually a really great question
and one that remains still under study
and debated amongst urologists
and uh, patients with kidney stones alike.
The best amount
of information comes from the European Association
of Urology, which has done a look at this question.
And so here is a flow chart from their guidelines,
which provides us with information on how to image patients
after treatment for kidney stones.
So in general, this was referring to treatment
with kidney stone surgery.
However, it’s also applicable to patients
who may have passed their stones since
that is a treatment option as well.
And so here they try to take a risk-based approach, meaning
that they try to put categories around how likely someone is
to recur or make new kidney stones and
therefore inform how long
and how frequently they should be imaged.
But before we get into this flow chart,
I think it’s important to think about
or discuss the three options in general that are available
for us to image people and identify kidney stones.
So the first option is the good old fashioned plain x-ray,
which will identify small to medium
and certainly large radio opaque kidney stones.
So that means stones that are capable
of being detected on X-ray.
The second option is an ultrasound of the kidneys, part
of the ureters and the bladder.
This can can detect additional kidney stones
that may not be visible by x-ray, so those stones
that are radiolucent.
In addition, it does provide additional imaging
and information about potential blockage of the kidney
and changes of the kidney structure itself,
which are not visible on x-ray.
The third option is a CT scan.
Now this is the gold standard on how we identify
and diagnose kidney stones.
Almost all kidney stones are visible on CT scan
and it provides three dimensional meaning.
We can see all the structures and anatomy
and where the kidney stones lie in the course
of the urinary tract.
There are some additional caveats to each one
of these imaging, particularly that plain x-ray
and CT scan both use radiation
or x-rays to be able
to detect the stones while ultrasound does not.
And so that may play a role in some people’s decision about
which imaging modality is right for them.
Now let’s go to this flow chart.
We can see here that there are three main buckets.
So these are patients for this flow that have already passed
or had their stones surgically treated.
And in the first bucket we see patients
who have had postoperative imaging proving
that they do not have stones after their treatment
and they break it down into three essential categories.
The first bucket is patients that have radiopaque stones,
meaning they can be seen on x-ray.
An 80% safety margin means that they will capture most
of those patients who will reoccur by following them
with this imaging strategy.
So in this case, they’re following patients
after their treatment every six to 12 months with an x-ray
to look for those radio opaque stones.
In the second bucket, we see patients
that have radiolucent stones,
meaning they cannot be generally detected on x-ray.
Again, looking at an 80% safety margin being meaning being
able to capture patients who are gonna make stones
80% of the time.
Here, they want to follow patients every six to 12 months
with both an x-ray and an ultrasound of the kidney
and bladder for up to three years.
In the third category here, they’re trying
to increase the safety margin, meaning capturing 90%
of patients who, if they’re gonna recur
or make new stones, will be captured.
And in this case, they’re using x-ray
and ultrasound every six to 12 months for up to five years.
Now if we go to the second category,
these are patients who’ve had postoperative imaging
and they’ve detected additional stones
directly after their treatment.
Here we have two different buckets.
We have small stones that are detected,
and this case, the option is for to go back to surgery
to remove those uh, remaining stones
or continue to follow them every six to 12 months
with an ultrasound and x-ray for up to four years.
In the next category with larger stones,
the recommendation is to repeat surgery.
In the final category here we’re
thinking about high risk patients.
So these are patients who have had recurrence in the past
who may have had additional testing to prove
that they’re at high risk of recurrence
or developing new stones.
And so in the first bucket we see patients
who are on medical therapy.
So this may be pharmacologic like medication
or dietary interventions.
Here the recommendation is to follow up every six
to 12 months with an x-ray
and an ultrasound for up to four years.
If there’s no recurrence
or things are stable, you may be able to dis be discharged
and not follow up further.
In the last category, again, high risk people who’ve been
identified as having recurrence
or abnormalities in their urine
that may predispose them to recurrence.
The plan is for a follow-up, again, every six to 12 months
with an x-ray and an ultrasound for at least four years
with potentially up to 10 years.
So these are great resources here about
what might be a reasonable strategy
for follow-up after treatment.
Of course, these are only guidelines, meaning
that they may not apply to you
or they may need, may need
to be modified in your specific situation.
So it’s always really important to talk
to your healthcare professional about what’s right for you.
Finally, what’s not listed in this chart is if you have new
symptoms or you’re concerned about a new obstructing stone
or pain that you may wanna move towards that CT scan,
which when we first discussed is the gold standard
for diagnosing kidney stones.
I hope this helps answer your question
with a little bit more clarity
and based on evidence from the European
Association of Urology.
We appreciate the question
and look forward to more from the community.
Thanks.