Naveen Kumar et al., 2024: Letter to the editor for the article "Can shear wave elastography predict the success of shock wave lithotripsy used in renal stones treatment? A prospective study"

This letter is a comment to an article (1) that was one of my reviewer’s choice in the period 2024 I. Rather than comment on a comment, I prefer to let the reader decide for himself, and simply quote the letter shortened by the usual flattering remarks at the beginning. “… Methodology of the study has been described in detail but it would have been of great help, if the reason of excluding lower calyceal calculi of size 1.5–2 cm was mentioned as renal stones of 1–2 cm size were included. As lower calyceal location of stone is considered an adverse predictor for success of SWL, this should have been considered as an exclusion criterion to remove confounding bias. Similarly, skin to stone distance (SSD)of 10 cm or less is considered a positive predictor for success of SWL, but in this study, in both the groups, mean SSD was > 10 cm, which may act as a confounding factor in both groups. The value of SWE is dependent on the depth of penetration and as this parameter has not been considered in this study, it may have led to a bias. Since NCCT was performed in all cases, is it recommended to remove NCCT from evaluation protocol for renal stones planned for SWL? …” [Modified from (2)] 1 Can shear wave elastography predict the success of shock wave lithotripsy used in renal stones treatment? A prospective study. Samir M, Galaleldine A, El-Zayat T, Eldin ND, Mahmoud MA, Mostafa D. World J Urol. 2024 Mar 15;42(1):160. doi: 10.1007/s00345-024-04855-z. PMID: 38488885Free PMC article. 2 Kumar N et al. World J Urol. 2024 May 3;42(1):289. doi: 10.1007/s00345-024-05021-1. Peter Alken