Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial for Pain Relief After Office Ureteral Stent Removal

Patients who are undergoing cystoscopy with ureteral stent removal at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and have no contraindications to receiving ketorolac will be eligible. Patients will be randomized to receive either a 1 mL injection of ketorolac tromethamine or 1 mL injection of normal saline (0.9%) as the control arm. Ketorolac is a member of the pyrrolo-pyrrole group of non steroid anti inflammatory drugs. The mechanism of action of ketorolac, like that of other NSAIDs, is not completely understood but may be related to prostaglandin synthetase inhibition. The peak analgesic effect occurs within 2-3 hours. If no contraindications exist, ketorolac can be safely given to patients of any age in the 30 mg intramuscular formulation if given as a one time dose according to the package insert.

Normal saline contains 0.9% of Sodium chloride in each mL. Like ketorolac, it is a clear solution and given that there are no major side effects of normal saline it is a good control for our study. It is packaged in a single dose vial that contains 100 mL. It is preservative free and stored at room temperature (20-25°C). Local pain at the injection site may occur, temporarily.

The investigators will specifically look at pain scores before and after stent removal as well as narcotic medication use, telephone calls and/or emergency room visits for pain. Based on the rate of renal colic from our quality improvement project and prior work, the investigators calculated the maximum number of local subjects to be consented for this study to be n=116 (see biostatistics section). The study is expected to last 6 months.