ReviewInflammopharmacology2026
Magnetically actuated microrobots in urolithiasis: emerging frontiers in kidney stone diagnosis and management.
Review in Inflammopharmacology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Urolithiasis is a common and recurrent urinary tract disorder in which stone size, composition, location, anatomy, and patient factors influence the choice and success of treatment. Although shock wave lithotripsy (SWL), ureteroscopy (URS), and percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) provide effective treatment for many patients, residual fragments, difficult calyceal access, repeated procedures, tissue trauma, and procedure-specific risks remain relevant clinical challenges. These limitations have encouraged investigation of miniature, wirelessly controlled systems that could reach confined regions of the urinary tract and perform localized diagnostic or therapeutic tasks. This review examines magnetically actuated microrobots and related magnetic microdevices for kidney stone navigation, detection, fragmentation, dissolution, and fragment retrieval. Particular attention is given to rotational, oscillatory, and gradient-driven actuation; magnetic materials and biocompatible coatings; integration with ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, and other sensing approaches; and hybrid magnetic-acoustic or drug-delivery platforms. Rather than treating all microrobotic studies as equivalent, the review distinguishes direct urolithiasis evidence from evidence transferred from other biomedical applications. The available evidence remains predominantly preclinical. Demonstrations include urinary-tract phantoms, microfluidic models, ex vivo experiments, and selected animal studies, while human clinical trials of magnetically actuated microrobots for kidney stone diagnosis or treatment have not been established in the literature reviewed here. Accordingly, the principal value of these systems at present is technological feasibility rather than demonstrated clinical superiority. Key barriers include real-time localization, magnetic-force attenuation with depth, safe deployment and retrieval, obstruction or urothelial injury, material fate, manufacturing reproducibility, regulatory classification, and cost-effectiveness. Future clinical claims should therefore be considered prospective and conditional on rigorous validation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
42704594What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.