The use of JJ stent in the management of deep pelvic malignancies, does it prevent the ureteric injury?

Objectives: With the increasing number of pelvic malignancies like cervical or rectal cancer in the last decade, many difficulties and risk of complications increase, especially ureteric injuries during dissection due to local malignant spread or adhesions. We describe our work and experience using prophylactic JJ stents, in patients had open for such malignancies, with regard to prevention and
Management of ureteral injuries.
Design: Descriptive comparative retrospective analysis between January 2015 and December 2017.
Setting: Department of Urology and Surgical oncology, University Hospital, Assiut, Egypt.
Population and methods: Cases of patients who underwent open surgery for pelvic malignancies and who had JJ stents in their management and who didn't have been recorded. Open surgery was performed in collaboration between Department of urology and Surgical oncology Department at Assiut University Hospitals, Egypt.
Main outcome measures: To evaluate the benefits of JJ stent in the prevention and management of ureteral injuries during deep pelvic malignancy surgery.
Results: A total of 54 patients, 26 females and 28 males, had surgery for deep pelvic malignancies. 28 (51, 9 %) patients had prophylactic preoperative JJ stents, while 26 (48, 1 %) had not.
We noted ureteral injuries in total 15 cases (27.8%), 10 in cases with preoperative JJ stents and 5 in cases without. We noticed that JJ stent presence didn't prevent the ureteric injury but facilitated both dissection and repair of the injury.
Conclusions: Ureteral injuries couldn't be prevented by prophylactic preoperative JJ stents during open surgery for deep pelvic malignancies but stents could facilitate identification, dissection and repair of ureteric injuries.