Miniaturization of flexible ureteroscopes: a comparative trend analysis of 59 flexible ureteroscopes

AbstractThe purpose of this review is to analyze the trend in miniaturization of flexible ureteroscopes over the past decades, identify the advantages and disadvantages, and determine the correlation of individual parameters with release period. Flexible ureteroscopes mentioned in the literature or those commercially available were searched. To minimize the search bias, the instruments were grouped by release date time periods of  <  2000 year, 2000–2009, 2010–2019, and 2020 onwards. The final review included only those instrument models for which data on tip size, overall shaft, working length and channel size had been determined. The correlation among features investigated as well as with release period was also determ ined. 59 models of flexible ureteroscopes (26 fiber optic and 33 digital scopes) were included. Among the different features investigated among fiber optic endoscopes, only the sizes of the distal tip and overall shaft positively correlated with each other. In contrast to their fiber optic counterpa rts, a strong positive correlation was observed between tip and channel sizes, whereas negative correlation was found between channel size and overall shaft size and working length of digital scopes. Only distal tip of fiber optic flexible ureteroscopes and overall shaft of digital endoscopes were s ignificantly reduced over their evolution. With the development of technology, there has been an improvement of flexible ureteroscopes and one of the indic...
Source: Urolithiasis - Category: Urology & Nephrology Source Type: research