Urinary tract Infections, or UTIs, are common after a ureteroscopy, because reusable ureteroscopes can still harbor bacteria even after sterilization.

UTIs, however, are less likely to occur after a kidney stone procedure performed with a single-use ureteroscope compared with a reusable, according to a recent study.

The findings were published in the Journal of Endourology, which examined ureteroscopy procedures performed at a single-center clinic in California over a nine-year period.

Two urologists performed 991 ureteroscopy procedures at the University of California San Francisco from 2012 to 2021; of those 991 patients, 500 underwent ureteroscopy with a single-use scope.

The rates of post-operative UTI was 6.5 percent in patients whose stones were removed with a single-use ureteroscope, according to the research. That rate jumped to 11.9 percent in the patients who underwent kidney stone removal with a reusable scope.  

The improved stone-clearance rates may be due to single-use ureteroscopes having better deflection and greater consistency between uses, the authors write. That’s because reusable devices are used more than once and can lose their deflection ability over time.

Evidence also suggests that reusable ureteroscopes may contain contaminants despite sterilization and reprocessing, say the authors.

Click here for more from the study.