Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in stone surgery: A multi-centre study of patient experience of flexible ureteroscopy (fURS) versus extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (SWL)

Objectives: To compare patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for patients with symptomatic renal stone disease treated by flexible ureterorenoscopy (fURS) and shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) Introduction: Historically, surgical outcomes are measured by surgeon-specific outcomes such as ‘stone-free rates’. More recently, there is increasing emphasis on PROMs to ascertain a patient’s perspective of their own surgical outcome. Despite this, the literature in reference to renal stone-specific PROMs following stone treatment remains limited. Methods: Data were collected in a prospective multi-centre study. Patients undergoing fURS or SWL were asked to complete the validated Cambridge Renal Stone Patient Reported Outcome Measure ( CReSP) on the day of initial treatment and at weeks 1, 6 and 12 post-operatively. Results: Data were collected for 119 patients. Three were excluded as stone metric and demographic details were incomplete. Sixty underwent SWL and 56 underwent fURS. Median stone size was 7.52 mm. There were no significant differences in baseline PROM scores between the treatment groups. At 1 week, the PROM scores were significantly higher in the fURS group compared to SWL (27.40 ± 0.85sd versus 22.51 ± 1.07sd; p < 0.05). However, at 6 and 12 weeks, the PROM scores were significantly lower in the fURS group (18.51 ± 2.27sd versus 23.67 ± 1.30sd; p < 0.05) and (17.01 ± 2.29sd versus 22.49 ± 1.49sd; p < 0.05), respectively. By week 12, overall scores for anxiety and social factors were more favourable in the fURS cohort. Conclusion: Our study suggests that fURS is associated with a short-lived increase in morbidity in comparison with SWL, which may be due to ureteric stenting in the majority of patients post-operatively. However, fURS patients appear to report significantly better PROM scores in the longer term. This appears to be associated with more favourable anxiety and social factor scoring over the treatment period. Level of evidence: Not applicable.