Abstract
Background: The treatment of choice for bladder stones in children remains debatable. This study aimed to compare the outcomes of endourological and open cystolithotomy for the management of bladder stones in children. Methods: The Medline, Embase, Cochrane controlled trial databases and clinicaltrials.gov were searched for relevant English-language publications from 1 to 30 August 2022. Stone-free rate (SFR), complication rate, length of stay, and procedure duration were compared. Children (male and female) <18 years of age of any ethnicity with bladder stones (single/multiple) were included. Patients with a history of bladder augmentation or diversion were excluded. The quality of studies included was assessed using Cochrane's Risk of Bias Assessment. The meta-analysis was performed using RevMan. Results: Five articles (436 participants) that compared endourological versus open cystolithotomy were included in qualitative and quantitative analyses. Four were non-randomised, retrospective, and single centre studies. While the other one was a randomised controlled trial. Measure outcome characteristics included SFR, complications, procedure duration, and length of hospital stay. There was no significant difference in the SFR between transurethral cystolithotripsy (TUCL) and percutaneous cystolithotomy (PCCL) ( p=0.22). There were also no significant differences in complications (TUCL versus PCCL, p=0.18; TUCL versus open cystolithotomy [CL] and PCCL versus CL, p=0.08). PCCL featured a longer procedure duration than TUCL ( p<0.00001), while CL was shorter than TUCL and PCCL (both p<0.00001). Finally, in terms of length of stay, TUCL was superior to PCCL and CL, while PCCL was better than CL (all p<0.00001). Conclusions: Endourological and open surgical management of bladder stones in children showed comparable SFR and fewer complications. Open surgery offers a shorter procedure duration than endourological management, but PCCL features a shorter procedure duration than TUCL. In terms of length of stay, TUCL and PCCL were superior to CL, while TUCL was better than PCCL.