A prospective study published in World Journal of Urology evaluated the clinical value of systematic intraoperative urine cultures (UCs) during flexible ureteroscopy (FURS) for renal stone disease. Researchers analyzed 238 consecutive FURS procedures and 952 urine cultures collected preoperatively and intraoperatively at standardized stages, including bladder urine, pre-laser renal pelvic urine, and post-laser renal pelvic urine samples. Overall, 79% of cultures were negative, while 57.1% of patients had negative results at all sampling points.
Notably, 7.1% of patients with negative preoperative cultures developed de novo intraoperative culture positivity during surgery. Positive pre-laser intraoperative cultures were significantly associated with postoperative infectious complications, with infection and severe infection rates of 27% and 23%, respectively. Pre-laser positivity…
