Use of magnetic internal ureteral stents in pediatric urology: retrieval without routine requirement for cystoscopy and general anesthesia

In children the use of internal ureteral stents has the added morbidity of requiring general anesthesia for stent retrieval. Magnetically tipped ureteral stents were developed to allow easy retrieval without the need for anesthesia or cystoscopy. For pyeloplasty we generally do not use a stent or nephrostomy tube but we treated 7 children 2 1/2 months to 11 years old in whom we believed there was an indication for stenting and in whom we used a magnetically tipped stent. The catheters were removed with a magnetically tipped catheter retriever without the need for anesthesia in 6 of the 7 cases and cystoscopy was not required in any case. Our initial impression is that when stenting is advised the magnetically tipped ureteral stent appears to be a good alternative, especially in children, since it avoids the need for anesthesia and cystoscopic retrieval.