Efficacy of alpha-blockers in medical expulsive therapy for ureteral stones: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials between 2010 and 2025
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: Alpha-blockers are widely used in medical expulsive therapy (MET) for ureteral stones; however, the current evidence regarding their comparative effectiveness remains inconsistent. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of different alpha-blockers in facilitating ureteral stone passage and identify factors influencing treatment outcomes. Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published between 2010 and 2025. We searched multiple databases for studies comparing alpha-blockers with control interventions or other alpha-blockers for ureteral stones ≤10 mm. Primary outcome was stone expulsion rate; secondary outcomes included time to expulsion, pain episodes, analgesic use, and adverse events. We performed subgroup analyses by alpha-blocker type, stone size, location, and treatment duration. Network meta-analysis assessed comparative effectiveness between agents. Results: Twenty-nine RCTs with a total of 4,256 patients were included. Alpha-blockers significantly increased stone expulsion rates compared to controls (70.9% vs. 56.5%; RR 1.25, 95% CI 1.20-1.32; Number Needed to Treat (NNT) = 7) and reduced expulsion time by approximately three-days. Efficacy was greatest for distal ureteral stones (RR 1.52; Number Needed to Treat (NNT) = 4) and stones 5-10 mm (RR 1.35; NNT = 6). Network meta-analysis revealed efficacy ranking favoring at first terazosin, followed by doxazosin then, silodosin then, tamsulosin then, alfuzosin and last the least effective was naftopidil. Alpha-blockers significantly reduced pain episodes and analgesic requirements. Adverse events were infrequent (Number Needed to Harm (NNH) = 38), with retrograde ejaculation being most common with silodosin. Conclusion: Alpha-blockers significantly improve the stone expulsion rates and reduce expulsion time, especially for distal ureteral stones 5-10 mm in size. While tamsulosin remains the most studied agent, our network meta-analysis suggests terazosin and doxazosin may offer superior efficacy. The favorable risk-benefit profile supports routine use of alpha-blockers for appropriately selected patients with ureteral stones.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.018 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.085 | 0.012 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it