A New Initiative is Underway to Improve Lives of Kids with Kidney Stones

As the number of kidney stones in children has risen dramatically over the last 20 years due to a variety of factors, there is a strong desire among caregivers to determine the best course of treatment for their children. Thanks to a newly funded project grant, CHOP will be leading a study in the newly established Pediatric KIDney Stone (PKIDS) Care Improvement Network to determine the effectiveness of different approaches to removing kidney stones and how these procedures impact patients’ lives.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has funded a study that will follow patients for 3 months after they have received one of three procedures for the removal of kidney stones: ureteroscopy, an endoscopic outpatient procedure; shockwave lithotripsy, a noninvasive outpatient procedure; or percutaneous nephrolithotomy, a minimally invasive surgery with a short hospital stay. The study will be conducted by Pediatric KIDney Stone (PKIDS) Care Improvement Network, which is comprised of patients, caregivers, and clinicians across 22 pediatric healthcare systems in the United States.

Led by Gregory Tasian, MD, MSc, MSCE, an attending pediatric urologist in the Division of Urology at CHOP and faculty member in the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness, the study will examine patient experiences and stone clearance after surgery (e.g. pain, anxiety, psychological stress, and other quality of life measurements).  Additionally, the study seeks to identify operative techniques specific to each approach to improve clearance of the kidney stones as well as the patients’ experiences.

“The rapid increase in the incidence of pediatric kidney stones has revealed a lack of information that patients and their caregivers can use to make informed decisions about surgical treatment options. It is critical that we generate knowledge that improves care for and the lives of children with kidney stone disease through collaborative patient-centered research,” Tasian said. “We must also understand how we can make the procedures we have more effective, and that includes measuring the experiences of these young patients after surgery in a number of different ways.

“We are grateful that PCORI recognized the importance of this study to go beyond just surgically clearing kidney stones and placing an emphasis on the patient experience as a whole,” Tasian added.