Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of the tubeless approach with a ureteral stent versus nephrostomy tube for postoperative drainage following percutaneous nephrolithotomy, and to provide guidance for clinical practice. Methods Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were identified from PubMed (1966 to August 2008), Ovid (1966 to August 2008), Embase (1966 to August 2008), The Cochrane Library (Issue 3, 2008) and CBM (1978 to 2008). We also handsearched for relevant published and unpublished reports and check their references. The quality of the included trials was evaluated by two reviewers. We used The Cochrane Collaboration’s RevMan 5.0.16 software for meta-analysis. Results Eight studies involving 507 patients were included. We divided the patients into three groups: small (8~9 Fr), medium (16~18 Fr) and large (20~24 Fr) according to the diameter of nephrostomy tube for the analysis. Our meta-analyses showed: ①Hospital stay (hours): There was no statistically significant difference between tubeless and small bore tubes, but a difference was found in the comparison of tubeless versus medium and large bore tubes [WMD (95%CI) –32.4 (–33.64, –31.16) and –39.07 (–67.75, –10.39), respectively]; ② Puncture site urinary leakage: No statistically significant difference was found between tubeless and small bore tubes, of between tubeless versus medium tubes [RR= 0.07, 95%CI (0.00, 1.15), P=0.06]; ③ Visual analogue scale scores for postoperative pain on Day 1: There was no statistically significant difference between tubeless and small bore tubes, but there was a difference in tubeless versus medium and large bore tubes [MD (95%CI) –2.80 (–2.94, –2.66) and –2.04 (–2.29, –1.79), respectively];④No statistically significant difference was found in transfusion, fever or infection and operating time between tubeless and any size of nephrostomy tube. Conclusion No statistically significant difference between tubeless versus small bore tubes is found for any of the outcome measurements we analysed. Compared with medium and large bore tubes, tubeless PCNL of ureteral stent could reduce hospital stay, urine leakage and postoperative pain without an increase in complications. There is a moderate possibility of selection bias, performance bias and publication bias in this review, because of the small number of the included studies, which weakens the strength of the evidence of our results. Better evidence from more high-quality randomized controlled trials is needed.
Objective To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of chemotherapeutics bladder irrigation (CBI) after transurethral resection (TR) in the treatment of cystitis glandularis (CG). Methods Databases including MEDLINE, The Cochrane Library, EMbase, VIP, CNKI and CBM were searched from January 2001 to November 2011 to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and case-control studies (CCSs) on pirarubicin or mitomycin bladder irrigation after TR in the treatment of CG. Two reviewers independently screened articles according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data and evaluated the quality of the included studies. Then meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.0. Results A total of 11 articles involving 5 RCTs and 6 CCSs were included. Among the total 1032 patients involved, 497 patients were in the control group treated by TR alone, while the other 535 patients were in the treatment group given CBI after RT. There were two subgroups, one involving 347 patients irrigated by pirarubicin in 7 studies, and the other involving 188 patients irrigated by mitomycin in 4 studies. The results of meta-analysis showed: (a) pirarubicin bladder irrigation after TR could increase both short-term and long-term cure rates and decrease both short-term and long-term relapse rates, but no significant differences were found in both short-term and long-term improvement rates, compared with the control group. As for the safety, pirarubicin was similar to the control group in the incidence of urinary irritation, but it was superior in the incidence of bloody urine; and (b) mitomycin bladder irrigation after TR could increase long-term cure rate and decrease long-term relapse rate, but no significant differences were found in short-term cure rate and short-term improvement rate, compared with the control group. Mitomycin was similar to the control group in incidence of urinary irritation and bloody urine. Sensitivity analyses indicated the outcomes regarding to some indexes in different studies were inconsistent. Conclusion Based on the current evidence, pirarubicin or mitomycin bladder irrigation after TR can increase long-term cure rate and decrease long-term relapse rate in treating CG, but pirarubicin tends to easily cause bloody urine. For the inconsistent outcomes of different studies, the results of this meta-analysis are instable and highly possible to be inconsistent to the future outcomes, hereby it is uncertain of the better effectiveness of CBI after, TR compared with TR alone, and more high-quality and large-scale RCTs are needed to be performed.