FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM DECEMBER 22, 2016 • THE QUEENS COURIER 31 wellness LIJ Forest Hills expands urologic services Cho Jane Hartmen Christopher All things must pass, but kidney stones don’t always cooperate. Th at’s one painful reason why Long Island Jewish Forest Hills is expanding the urologic services it provides patients in the community and surrounding area. Both men and woman suff ering from urinary tract diseases or disorders can seek treatment at the hospital. Jane Cho, MD, and Christopher Hartman, MD, are urology specialists at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills who treat kidney stones, overactive bladder, benign prostate enlargement, urinary incontinence and urinary tract infections. Th ey also handle urological cancers of the bladder, kidney, prostate and testicles. Yet one of the most common and uncomfortable urologic disorders – kidney stones – is on the rise. LIJ Forest Hills has seen an uptick in patients with the kidney ailment. “We’re relatively quickly building up the program at LIJ Forest Hills to become a leader in treating kidney stones, especially in the Queens area,” said Dr. Hartman, who has been with Northwell Health for fi ve years and completed his surgery and urology residency training at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park. Both doctors said that the No. 1 cause of kidney stones in the general population is dehydration. “Th ere’s a lot of people out there who are not drinking enough water,” said Dr. Cho. Right behind that in second place is a high salt diet. Too much sodium leeches the calcium out of your system and suspends it in the urine, which causes kidney stones. Other culprits include coff ee, dark teas and dark soda (such as Coke, Pepsi, etc.), which are high in phosphates and oxalates that also can trigger stones. “If someone told me I had to give up coffee I’d be pretty upset,” explained Dr. Cho. “But I usually tell them that for every eight ounce cup of coff ee that you drink , you should be drinking two cups of water to dilute it out. Stones form in the kidney and can travel from the kidney down the ureter (the tube that carries the urine from the kidney) into the bladder. Th is can stop the fl ow of urine, which puts pressure on the kidney, leading to pain, nausea and vomiting. Th e treatment of kidney stones depends on their size and location. For a small stone (less than 5 mm or half the size of a TicTac) medication is usually given for pain and to relax the ureter so that the patient can pass it naturally,” said Dr. Cho. “If we have to go in and get it, we do a ureteroscopy, which means we go up the ureter with a camera, we fi nd it and we laser it into smaller fragments to be removed,” explained Dr. Cho. Th e laser can break up to a 1.5 cm stone (about the size of a full TicTac). For very large stones within the kidney, a more aggressive surgical intervention called a percutaneous nephrolithotomy is performed. Th is procedure involves inserting a small instrument in a patient’s back to remove the stone. Dr. Cho is also trained in robotic surgery – a popular, less-invasive surgical alternative for most types of urological cancer – which is done at LIJ Medical Center in New Hyde Park. She has a particular interest in urological cancer, including bladder cancer, having done a urologic oncology fellowship at Indiana University School of Medicine. Bladder cancer is a disease that smokers especially need to be aware of, since their risk of getting the disease is markedly increased. Primary care doctors routinely do urinalysis screenings for elderly patients with a history of tobacco use. Oft en these tests fi nd microscopic blood in the urine – a common sign of bladder cancer. “Th is is usually the screening that gets the ball rolling to fi gure out where the blood is coming from,” said Dr. Cho. “Bladder cancer outcomes depend on what stage we diagnose it at.” If it’s caught early, the disease is highly treatable. However, early-stage bladder cancer is likely to recur. For this reason, Dr. Cho recommends follow-up tests every three to six months for bladder cancer survivors to check for any recurrence of the disease. To make an appointment with either Dr. Hartman or Dr. Cho, please call 516- 734-8500. ����������������
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