Aim: To investigate the results of laparoscopic management of patients with ureterolithiasis, depending on the type of laparoscopic approach and location of the stone.
Materials and methods. This study is a retrospective analysis of 30 ureterolithiasis patients who underwent laparoscopic ureterolithotomy from 2010 to 2015. Patients were divided into four subgroups depending on the type of laparoscopic approach – transperitoneal (n=17) and retroperitoneal (n=13) and on location of stones – upper ureteral stone (n=20) and mid ureteral stone (n=10). The patients comprised 23 (76.7%) men and 7 (23.3%) women aged from 18 to 68 years (mean age 46.2±2.3 years). 15 patients had stones in the right and 15 in left ureters. The groups were comparable by sex, age, the severity of hydronephrosis, body mass index, duration of urolithiasis, comorbidities and previous surgeries (p>0.05).
Results. There were no deaths, conversion to open surgery or intraoperative complications. The only statistically significant difference between transperitoneal and retroperitoneal approaches was the absence of postoperative complications (p<0.05). The duration of drainage and hospital stay was significantly shorter in patients with mid ureteral stone than in patients with upper ureteral stone (p<0.05).
Conclusion. Surgical management of patients with ureterolithiasis of various locations using laparoscopic ureterolithotomy by different approaches showed positive results of in all cases thus indicating high clinical effectiveness of this method.

Keywords: ureterolithiasis, transperitoneal ureterolithotomy, retroperitoneal ureterolithotomy