title: Tubeless vs standard percutaneous nephrolithotomy: a meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To systematically review and compare tubeless percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) with standard PCNL.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a review of the English language literature on studies involving randomized controlled trials for PCNL. The studies chosen to be included in our review compared tubeless PCNL with standard PCNL and described the advantages of each in the outcomes. Two reviewers independently screened the studies for eligibility, evaluated their quality and extracted the data from the eligible studies, with confirmation by cross-checking. Data were processed using RevMan 5.0.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seven studies involving 1365 cases met the inclusion criteria, and these were included in the meta-analysis. The patients' baseline characteristics were comparable in all the studies. By comparing the four common characteristics, we found no difference in efficacy between the two surgical approaches in terms of mean operation duration and postoperative haematocrit change (P > 0.05). We found that the mean analgesic requirement and number of days in hospital were lower for tubeless PCNL (P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results show that tubeless PCNL is a good option in non-complicated cases, with the advantages of reduced hospital stay and little need for postoperative analgesia. There was no difference between the two approaches in operation duration, or haematocrit change after surgery. As only few studies with small study populations were available, more high quality larger trials with longer follow-up are recommended.
authors: Department of Urology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
authors: Jiawu
authors: J
authors: Wang
authors: Chunlei
authors: C
authors: Zhao
authors: Chengyao
authors: C
authors: Zhang
authors: Xiaodong
authors: X
authors: Fan
authors: Yanjun
authors: Y
authors: Lin
authors: Qing
authors: Q
authors: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000698:Analgesia / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007669:Kidney Calculi / Q000601:surgery*; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009403:Nephrostomy, Percutaneous / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000209:etiology; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome