Management of urinary stone disease in general practice: A French Delphi study

Recommendations for the management of urolithiasis in primary care are lacking in France. The Delphi method was used to seek consensus from an expert panel regarding outpatient management of urolithiasis.

We gathered 25 French experts from five clinical specialties: general practice, urology, nephrology, emergency medicine and radiology. The first survey was formulated after an exhaustive literature review. At each of the three rounds, the experts were given the results of the previous round and were asked again to complete the survey. The threshold of 70% of the vote was taken as defining consensus. A final round of validation involving five additional general practitioners was conducted.

Twenty experts participated in the study (five urologists, four nephrologists, four general practitioners, four emergency physicians, and three radiologists, participation rate = 80%). According to the survey results, most patients could be treated as outpatients (70.5% of the votes) but a biological (urine dipstick and culture, serum creatinine ± serum β-hcg) and imaging (renal ultrasound + Kidney-Ureters-Bladder X-ray or low-dose CT san) work-up is recommended within 24 hours. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are the analgesics of choice. An aetiological work-up should be performed after the second episode of renal colic. A follow-up imaging should be carried out yearly in urolithiasis patients.

With the use of the Delphi method, we propose a multidisciplinary recommendation for the management of urolithiasis patients in primary care.