USE OF MAGNETIC INTERNAL URETERAL STENTS IN PEDIATRIC UROLOGY - RETRIEVAL WITHOUT ROUTINE REQUIREMENT FOR CYSTOSCOPY AND GENERAL-ANESTHESIA

In children the use of internal ureteral stents has the added morbidit y of requiring general anesthesia for stent retrieval. Magnetically ti pped ureteral stents were developed to allow easy retrieval without th e need for anesthesia or cystoscopy. For pyeloplasty we generally do n ot use a stent or nephrostomy tube but we treated 7 children 2 1/2 mon ths to 11 years old in whom we believed there was an indication for st enting and in whom we used a magnetically tipped stent. The catheters were removed with a magnetically tipped catheter retriever without the need for anesthesia in 6 of the 7 cases and cystoscopy was not requir ed in any case. Our initial impression is that when stenting is advise d the magnetically tipped ureteral stent appears to be a good alternat ive, especially in children, since it avoids the need for anesthesia a nd cystoscopic retrieval.