Kidney Stones

YOLT-203 was granted an Orphan Drug Designation and a Rare Pediatric Disease Designation in September 2024.

A phase 1/2 trial of ABO-101 is expected to launch in the first half of 2025.

As the year comes to a close, we revisit some of this year’s top content on kidney stone management.

The SURE procedure also demonstrated significantly better outcomes on the study’s secondary end points of stone clearance and residual stone volume.

The redePHine trial is expected to launch in the first half of 2025.

"The Stone Clear device provides patients with a non-invasive option to reduce their residual fragment stone burden in the clinic environment while being fully awake," says James E. Lingeman, MD.

"From a revenue, profit and loss perspective, actually, in many instances, they anticipate that physicians may actually make more money using the second-generation CVAC device compared to traditional ureteroscopy, depending on your payer mix and your practice," says Thomas Chi, MD, MBA.

Thomas Chi, MD, MBA, discusses advantages to the CVAC System.

"What we demonstrated was that at 30-day and 90-day interval outcomes, the patients actually had equivalent safety profiles compared to traditional ureteroscopy with basketing," says Thomas Chi, MD, MBA.

YOLT-203 is currently being assessed in the early phase 1 YOLT-203-101 trial.

"I think we could explore risk adjustment for surgeon reimbursement as a way of incentivizing providers and compensating them fairly for taking care of these more complex patients," says Victoria S. Edmonds, MD.

"For more rural practices, for ureteroscopy, they also received lower reimbursement than urban practices," says Victoria S. Edmonds, MD.

In total, 8 of 40 patients who underwent ultrasonic propulsion experienced relapse, compared with 21 of 42 patients who underwent observation.

“What this means for patients is that thiazides remain an important option in the toolkit for preventing kidney stone recurrence,” says Ryan S. Hsi, MD, FACS.

In total, the trial plans to enroll 7 patients with PH1 through a single center in China.

“The great news is that we have now completed recruitment. We actually recruited more than 1700 patients,” says Kari A.O. Tikkinen, MD, PhD.

Any stone fragmentation was achieved in 88% of patients.

"There are actually no clear guidelines on when to refer patients with nephrolithiasis to genetic testing," says Nicolette G. Payne, MD.

"The great news is that we have now completed recruitment. We actually recruited more than 1700 patients," says Kari A.O. Tikkinen, MD, PhD.

"I think what's really important for this is that you counsel patients before they undergo testing," says Nicolette G. Payne, MD.

Per Kaplan-Meier estimates, 95.6% of patients who underwent SURE were free of health care consumption events by 12 months, compared with 83.5% of patients who underwent URS.

"We sought to describe the genetic and clinical characteristics for patients undergoing genetic testing at our institution that were referred to genetics from our multidisciplinary stone clinic," says Nicolette G. Payne, MD.

“I think the future is very bright for endourology and pushing the envelope with different minimally invasive techniques to remove stones,” says Marcelino E. Rivera, MD.

"I think the patients that benefit the most are patients that have certain types of stones that potentially are much harder to treat with some of the more minimally invasive types of procedures," says John Michael DiBianco, MD.

"The cases that I've done have been here, at least, have been some of the most, I guess, impactful and really make me proud and happy to be a urologist and to do something [for which] the patients are incredibly grateful," says John Michael DiBianco, MD.

In preclinical studies, META-001-PH demonstrated the ability to reduce urinary oxalate excretion by up to 80%.

"You definitely need to be very adaptable. You have to have a great team," says John Michael DiBianco, MD.

"Kidney stone treatment is all about access," says Joseph Song, MD.

“With the support of the pediatric department and the pediatric urologists I work very closely with, we've been very successful in identifying the right patients,” says John Michael DiBianco, MD.

Data showed that Hispanic patients were consistently underrepresented in clinical trials, while Black participants tended to be overrepresented.