Kidney Stones
NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital’s Urology team includes physicians with advanced training in the assessment, treatment, and prevention of kidney stones, including complex renal and ureteral stones. We choose the most effective treatment for your care, offering:
- Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy. Guided by x-rays or ultrasound, the urologist can pinpoint a stone from outside your body, targeting shock waves on the stone that break it up into smaller fragments so they can be passed from your body. This procedure is not invasive and can be done on an outpatient basis.
- Laser therapy with ureteroscopy. With this minimally invasive endoscopic approach, the urologist can visualize your upper urinary tract and treat stones in the kidneys and ureters, fragmenting your stone with a laser device. Our hospital was the first in New York to use the revolutionary Holmium laser with Moses technology. You can usually have laser therapy performed as an outpatient.
- Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL). Our urologists use PNL to primarily treat large kidney stones. The surgeon enters the kidney through a small incision in the patient’s back, over the area where the kidney is located, to break up and remove large stones with special tools.
Preventing Recurrent Kidney Stones
If you have had more than one kidney stone in your lifetime, you are at higher risk of recurrent stone disease. Therefore, prevention is extremely important. We'll connect you with a nephrologist to evaluate your metabolic risk factors for stone formation and make suggestions about dietary changes, lifestyle modifications, and/or possibly medication that can reduce your risk of stone development. A registered dietitian with special expertise in stone disease can counsel you about dietary changes to lower your risk of stone formation.