Dr. Shah discusses study of thulium fiber laser for kidney stones

In this video, Ojas Shah, MD, discusses the background for the study, “Comparative Analyses and Ablation Efficiency of Thulium Fiber Laser by Stone Composition.” Shah is the vice chair and a professor of urology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, New York.

Video Transcript:

We are very interested in laser technologies for kidney stones and for upper tract urothelial cancer. This laser technology is also used for BPH surgery and other types of interventions as well. There's a newer technology that's come on the market. Our standard primary treatment modality for stones and upper tract urothelial cancer in the past has been holmium laser. In the last 3 years or so the new there's been an introduction of thulium fiber laser, which is a newer technology that can be used both for stones and tissue, both in the BPH world and in upper tract tumors and incisions of upper urinary tract pathology. So, we purchased one of these devices approximately 3 years ago and have started doing research on the technology and how efficacious it is for treatment of stones, in addition to other disease processes. We got an investigator-initiated grant from Coloplast, one of the biotechnology companies that has this technology on their platform, and started doing research on kidney stones to see how well you can treat kidney stones and how to make this treatment safer and more efficacious. There are a lot of people using this technology now, but it is not mainstream by any means. The biggest problem with it is that nobody really knows what the right settings are to treat these different conditions. There are several papers that have come out in the last few years to try and identify what those settings are and what would be safe for these types of technologies. This project was something to delve deeper into that.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.