Streeper NM, Galida M, Boltz S, et al. - In this study, the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients was compared with residual fragments after surgical intervention for kidney stones to patients that are stone-free using the disease-specific WISQOL questionnaire. Researchers included a total of 313 adult patients who had undergone surgical intervention for kidney stones at 4 sites completing a WISQOL questionnaire. Surgical data including the presence of residual fragments on post-operative imaging were retrospectively collected. They computed standardized WISQOL total and domain scores (0-100), which included items related to social functioning (D1), emotional functioning (D2), stone-related impact (D3), and vitality (D4). After surgical intervention, stone-free status is not correlated with better HRQOL when compared with patients whose surgeries left residual fragments. The findings demonstrated that further surgical intervention on residual fragments to achieve stone-free status may actually result in worse HRQOL.