Recent Advances in Ureteral Stents

Abstract

A ureteral stent is widely used to drain ureteral obstructions, which allows urine to bypass the obstruction. The double J stent, a representative ureteral stent, has undergone many advancements in material and design recently. In addition, indications of double J stent insertion have been broadly expanded to improve urinary obstruction before and after extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy and to maintain ureteral patency after a ureteral surgery or treatment of a ureteral fistula. The recently developed metallic ureteral stents showed excellent long-term patency in patients with malignant ureteral strictures. Therefore, metallic stents could be an alternative to double J stents in select patients. In this review article, we describe the materials, designs, indications, details of the antegrade ureteral stenting procedure, and outcomes of the double J stent and metallic stent procedures.