Small bowel perforation after extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy of an ureter stone.

A 60-year-old man was treated by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) for an impacted ureter stone. Two days after the procedure he developed an acute abdomen. On laparotomy, a small bowel perforation in the area of an adhesion to the abdominal wall was found. The adherent intestinal segment was located exactly in the range of the ESWL field, so that excluding further reasons the shockwave lithotripsy must be assumed to be causative. Copyright 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel