A New Cooling Technique for Kidney Stone Removal by the Vattikuti Urology Institute!

Urologists at the Vattikuti Urology Institute (VUI) at Henry Ford devised an unconventional technique to remove a staghorn calculi, or a large kidney stone with sharp, craggy branches, which can lead to disease or death if left untreated. The technique is called Robotic Anatrophic Nephrolithotomy or RANL, for short and is combined with a cooling procedure, referred to as ICE.

While using this procedure to remove staghorn kidney stones is a first, doctors from Henry Ford and the Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital (MPUH) in Gujarat, India have used RANL on 3 patients without any complications. Researchers at the VUI and MPUH explain that the new procedure is “a safe, minimally invasive option that may be considered in patients with staghorn stones.”

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Michigan Hospital Systems in Merger Talks

Henry Ford Health System and Beaumont Health System have started discussing the possibility of merging.  The combined organization would become a $6.4 billion annual revenue hospital system, with 8 hospitals, 38 medical centers, 3,600 beds, 42,000 employees, 1,900 employed physicians, 3,000 private practice physicians, and a 643,000 member health plan.

For the full article, visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204846304578090831989898580.html.