Severe recurrent ureteral stricture: the combined use of an anterograde and retrograde approach in the prone split-leg position without X-rays.

We report on a 50-year-old woman first treated by us in 1990 for uroseptic fever. Urography showed occlusion of the terminal tract of the lower third of the left ureter. The patient was submitted to successful left ureteroneocystostomy (UNCS). Three months later, she had a relapse of uroseptic fever, and urography showed right ingravescent dilation and excellent functional activity of the left urinary tract. Right UNCS was performed. A further relapse on the right side was again treated with UNCS and psoas-hitch bladder, but both the dilation and the occlusion persisted. Considering the state of the patient, and in order to remove the right nephrostomy that had been applied in the meantime, and to reduce the state of inflammation in view of further surgery, it was decided to treat the right ureteral total stenosis with ureteroscopic resection through the ureter facilitated by an other luminous flexible ureteroscope inserted upstream via nephrostomy. This technique is based on concepts searching for stenotic ureteral zones in transplanted kidneys, with the help of an adequate luminous catheter. An X-ray follow-up 9 months later evidenced that the maneuver was totally successful.