Objective: Ureteral stents are customarily inserted to facilitate urinary drainage, but they come with their own glitches of being forgotten and/or encrusted leading to serious consequences. The present study aimed to report the complications in patients with forgotten and encrusted stents according to the Clavien-Dindo system specific to urological procedures and identify the factors leading to high-grade (Clavien-Dindo Grade 4A or above) complications.

Methods: The hospital records of patients with forgotten encrusted double-J stents over a period of 8 years were reviewed. The parameters recorded included patient demographics, indwelling time, need for percutaneous nephrostomy, hemodialysis, urine culture, blood culture, total blood counts, serum creatinine, radiologic findings, management techniques, number of surgical interventions, modified Clavien-Dindo complications, follow-up, and mortality, if any.

Results: Forty patients were included in the study. The median age was 52 (range 6-85) years. Of the total, 25 (62.5%) patients had a “significant” stent load; 31 (77.5%) had renal failure or acute kidney injury on presentation; 19 (47.5%) patients had sepsis at presentation. Among the patients presented with sepsis, 11 (57.9%) patients demonstrated a positive urine culture; and 7/11 (63.6%) patients exhibited pan-resistant organisms. Twelve out of 40 (30.0%) patients in our series developed high-grade Clavien-Dindo complications. On univariate analysis, sepsis at presentation (p=0.007), stent load (p=0.031), diabetes (p=0.023), positive urine culture (p=0.007), and stent indwelling time of more than 1 year (p=0.031) were found to be significant. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, sepsis at presentation (p=0.017) and positive urine culture (p=0.016) were significant predictors for high-grade complications.

Conclusion: It is prudent to identify specific risk factors, namely sepsis at presentation and positive urine culture to triage and optimize these patients before surgical management.