Ureteral Stent
Cystoscopic stent placement technique (better for stent placement alone)
- Use single or double bridge
- Enter bladder with rigid cystoscope
- Place wire (double floppy, sensor, motion) into ureteral orifice
- Optional: place bumblebee catheter and obtain urine culture from collecting system
- Optional: place bumblebee catheter and shoot retrograde pyelogram to define collecting system
- Place stent over wire, back up cystoscope once thick black line visualized at ureteral orifice, and visualize pusher at bladder neck
- Remove wire, confirm proximal curl with fluoroscopy and distal curl with visualization
- Place catheter if concern for severe infection
Fluoroscopic stent technique (better at end of ureteroscopy)
- Place wire similar to cystoscopic technique, proceed with rest of procedure
- Pass stent over wire, then pass pusher behind stent - ensure visualization of radiopaque pusher mark, position at midsymphysis.
- Tip: maintain good back-tension and use a stiffer wire, otherwise wire can buckle in bladder (fix by slowly withdrawing wire)
- Remove wire to ensure proximal curl, then remove wire completely and gently push distal tip into bladder
Slick stent exchange technique
- Use double bridge
- Enter bladder with rigid cystoscope
- Pass bumblebee next to stent at ureteral orifice
- Pass wire (sensor, bentson) through bumblebee and up to kidney
- Remove bumblebee
- Insert flexible graspers through other channel and into bladder
- Grasp stent
- Push/pull with one hand on wire, and other hand simultaneously holding graspers shut and camera/scope
- Once stent is outside meatus, remove stent and grasper, then reinsert scope into bladder over wire
- Place stent using direct visualization, sitting at bladder neck and releasing once distal end is at bladder neck and pusher is visible
Resonance Stent placement
- Perform cystoscopy
- Place glide or sensor wire up to renal pelvis
- Place bumblebee over wire up to renal pelvis (retrograde pyelogram optional), exchange for stiffer wire
- Place resonance sheath over wire, shoot retrograde to define pelvic anatomy, then align mark at UPJ
- Insert stent into sheath, then push up to renal pelvis (watch curl under fluoroscopy)
- Slowly push distal end to mid-pubic symphysis, then push/pull sheath out to curl stent in bladder