Lithotomy Health Dictionary

Surgical removal of a calculus (stone) from part of the urinary tract.

The procedure is only performed for large stones; smaller stones are usually crushed and removed using cystoscopy, or pulverized ultrasonically by lithotripsy.

The operation of cutting for stone in the bladder. The operation is of great historic interest, because more has probably been written about it in early times than about any other type of surgery – and because, for a long time, it formed almost the only operation in which the surgeon dared to attack diseases of the internal organs.

n. the surgical removal of a stone (calculus) from the urinary tract. See nephrolithotomy; pyelolithotomy; ureterolithotomy.