Renal artery stent in solitary functioning kidneys: 77% of benefit: A systematic review with meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Solitary functioning kidney (SFK) is tough issue to address in clinical, mostly developed from renal artery stenosis (RAS) in adults. Although renal artery stent is widely used to help SFK patients, the efficacy of the stent is still disputable. This study is aimed at reviewing a series of SFK cases to draw a conclusion about the efficacy of renal artery stent. METHODS: All related papers published in PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library were searched. Studies or subsets were included only if they satisfied certain criteria. The benefit rate which equaled the rate of improvement subjoining the rate of stabilization was calculated. All analyses were conducted with Stata version 12.0 (Stata Corporation, College Station, TX). RESULTS: According to 7 papers on the efficacy of renal artery stent, 253 SFK patients were included. The result revealed that the renal artery stent could help SFK patients to improve or stabilize their renal function (RF). The benefit rate was 0.77, with 95% confidence interval between 0.72 and 0.83. CONCLUSIONS: With proper patient selection, renal artery stent could benefit SFK patients with a percentage odd of 0.77 to improve or stabilize the RF.