UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Kidney Stones Program provides patients with effective kidney stone treatments at one of the nation’s leading health-care facilities. Depending on the patient’s specific situation, our attentive and caring specialists can prescribe medications, dietary recommendations, a minimally invasive procedure or traditional surgery to treat kidney stones.

Our clinicians and researchers research new ways to help prevent kidney stones while also developing innovative treatments for their speedy and painless removal. The world’s most prescribed medication to treat kidney stones was developed by UT Southwestern researchers. Other advances from our scientific work include the creation of an effective diagnostic test that determines a person’s risk for developing kidney stones.

Our specialists provide the most up-to-date, minimally invasive procedures to treat kidney stones that are either too large to pass through the urinary tract or which have the potential to produce complications such as kidney damage, bleeding or persistent urinary tract infections.

Depending on the size of the stones, UT Southwestern specialists may use extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL), which uses shock waves to break up the stones while the patient sits in a tub of water. Stone fragments or sand-like particles are later passed through the urine.

If the stones are too large for ESWL therapy, our specialists may use a percutaneous nephrolithotomy procedure, which uses a small incision and a nephroscope to view the stones, break them up using ultrasound or laser technology and then extract the fragments.

For stones that have become blocked in the ureter, UT Southwestern specialists pass a tiny ureteroscope through the bladder into the ureter and break up the stones using ultrasound, laser or an electrohydraulic lithotripsy approach.

UT Southwestern’s surgeons also provide parathyroid surgery to treat patients whose stones develop as a result of overactive parathyroid glands. The surgery removes benign growths that raise calcium levels in the body, which can lead to the development of kidney stones.

The full range of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques for the treatment of kidney stones is available within the UT Southwestern Medical Center campus, enabling patients to obtain their consultations, examinations and treatments in a single location.

Patients with kidney stones can also be treated by our urology service.