Medical Expulsive Therapy for Urinary Stone Disease in Children

The rising incidence of urinary stone disease in children requires pediatric practitioners to keep abreast of management recommendations which are generally geared towards adults. Medical expulsive therapy (MET) is a non-surgical therapeutic option that can be trialed in patients who present with uncomplicated symptomatic ureteral stones. Seminal articles published and indexed in Medline on the topic of MET were extracted and reviewed. Studies suggest a potential benefit of alpha-blockade for the expulsion of distal ureteral stones that are >5 mm but ≤10 mm in adults and possibly >4 mm in children. Conversely, there does not seem to be any added benefit for MET in smaller stones (<5 mm) in which the spontaneous passage rate is high. Conclusions: The off-label use of these medications is one of the several barriers which contribute to the underutilization of MET in children. However, these may be a reasonable option in particular for older children and adolescents with the appropriate-sized stones.