Many urological procedures involving the kidney and the ureters require a stent replacement to avoid un-wanted adverse invents caused by the procedure itself. The stenting, however, predisposes the patient to adverse effects of its own and the application and removal of the stent is a notable monetary expense. The use of magnetic ureteral stents that can be removed via catheter instead of requiring an additional cystoscopy for removal would reduce the discomfort to patients and also possibly decrease the expenditures of the overall treatment. However, the comparability of standard ureteral stents and the magnetic ureteral stents is largely unknown due to there being no published research on the subject as of this time. The specific aim of this study is to validate our hypothesis that the magnetic ureteral stents have the same amount of adverse effects as the more commonly used non-magnetic ureteral stents.~The design is as prospective randomized, single-blinded, multi-institutional, non-inferiority study conducted in Hospital Districts of Southwest Finland, Päijät-Häme, Pohjois-Savo, Satakunta and Keski-Suomi. Using age and gender stratification, patients are randomised 1:1 fashion into having a magnetic (n=85) or standard ureter stent (n=85). The primary objectives are the mean differences between the two groups in pain and urinary symptoms scores determined by the Ureteral Stent Symptom Questionnaire (USSQ) 4 weeks after stent placement.~The patients will be recruited starting from the 4rd quarter of 2018 and ending during the 3rd quarter of 2020. Preliminary analysis of all results will be available in September 2020 and reports are expected to be written during December 2020.
The specific aim of this study is to validate our hypothesis that the magnetic ureteral stents have the same amount of adverse effects as the more commonly used non-magnetic ureteral stents. If this hypothesis would be confirmed then the usage of magnetic ureteral stents would be justified for both reducing patient discomfort by way of fewer cystoscopies and possibly also decreasing the overall expenditures of treatment.