Laser lithotripsy is a surgical procedure to remove stones from urinary tract, i.e., kidney, ureter, bladder, or urethra.
[1] Laser lithotripsy was invented at the Wellman Center for Photo medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in the 1980s to remove impacted urinary stones.
An optical fiber is inserted through the working channel of the scope, and laser light is directly emitted to the stone.
The stone is fragmented and the remaining pieces are collected in a "basket" and/or washed out of the urinary tract, along with the finer particulate "dust.
[3] A 2013 meta-analysis found LL can treat larger stones (> 2 cm) with good stone-free and complication rates.