Through years of personal research, and experience of over 18 years in lithotripsy. Every time I read the published article or attend a congress, I go back to my childhood days. The story told by my grandfather refreshes in my mind “the story of blind men and elephant” (link).
Story of lithotripsy is not much different than this story. Physicians are blinded by the lack of knowledge of lithotripsy. They have not put efforts to learn the technique of performing lithotripsy. They all accept HM3 as gold standard treatment, and later compare the result of todays lithotripter with HM3 without learning the technique and putting efforts to learn and master the technique. They have put all their efforts to master invasive procedures, if 50% of time was invested in learning the technique, today lithotripsy would have been on much higher level. Without learning the technique they speak out loud. Its old technology, it’s not efficient, it is not better than FURS(RIRS) or mini-perc, fragments are large, it leaves back residual stones. These statements are no different than the shout of the man in story who gave conclusion without having holistic approach to see big picture.
Not all shockwaves created by different technologies are same. Hence we see strong variation in results 25% to 90% on literature search
