Lithotripsy requires a lot of complicated equipment. In addition, crushing stones often requires sedation or anesthesia, as it is associated with severe pain. The new non-invasive Lithovortex technology solves these problems by using vortex sound waves, according to the website of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
During the treatment, acoustic vortex beams are created, which begin to rotate around the stones like a tornado and lead to their soft disintegration. Despite the softness of the effect, the new method turned out to be stronger than lithotripsy. For this reason, it takes half as much time, thanks to which the patient can abandon sedation.
The authors report that Lithovortex is not limited to kidney stones and can be used for other purposes, such as fragmentation of aortic valve calcification. The team is currently continuing the preclinical stage of experiments and testing the technology in various models.
Previously, other scientists have introduced an improved version of lithotripsy, the Break Wave technology, which has shown excellent results in breaking up stones in patients in clinical trials. It also does not require sedation.
