As part of the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Urological Association of Asia (UAA), the Asian School of Urology, Young Leaders' Workshop was held in Kyoto, 23-25 April 2010. The workshop focused on future national Asian leaders in the field of Urology and was arranged by the Asian School of Urology (ASU), an educational branch of the UAA, and Dr Osamu Ogawa, the workshop Organizer. Urologists from several Japanese universities contributed to the workshop as advisors, taskforce members, and group members. The workshop was also actively supported by Dr Allen Chiu (Taiwan) and Dr Stephen Lim (Singapore). A younger generation of urologists was invited to attend the workshop and, in all, 29 delegates from 17 countries (Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam), chosen on the basis of recommendations from local councils, attended. The purpose of the workshop was to open channels of communication between future Asian leaders in Urology. The workshop topic was "Asian Clinical Guidelines". Workshop participants were divided into five groups addressing distinct issues associated with the notion of clinical guidelines: Group A, General Problems; Group B, Prostate Cancer; Group C, Stone Disease; Group D, Infectious Diseases; and Group E, Bladder Cancer. The workshop consisted of an introductory session, followed by three main sessions, each of which consisted of a group discussion of specific problems associated with the establishment of Asian Guidelines for Urological Diseases and how best to deal with them, followed by a plenary presentation of the outcomes.
The Urological Association of Asia, consisting of 25 member associations and one affiliated member since its foundation in 1990, has planned to develop Asian guidelines for all urological fields. The field of stone diseases is the third of its guideline projects. Because of the different climates, and social, economic and ethnic environments, the clinical practice for urinary stone diseases widely varies among the Asian countries. The committee members of the Urological Association of Asia on the clinical guidelines for urinary stone disease carried out a surveillance study to better understand the diversity of the treatment strategy among different regions and subsequent systematic literature review through PubMed and MEDLINE database between 1966 and 2017. Levels of evidence and grades of recommendation for each management were decided according to the relevant strategy. Each clinical question and answer were thoroughly reviewed and discussed by all committee members and their colleagues, with suggestions from expert representatives of the American Urological Association and European Association of Urology. However, we focused on the pragmatic care of patients and our own evidence throughout Asia, which included recent surgical trends, such as miniaturized percutaneous nephrolithotomy and endoscopic combined intrarenal surgery. This guideline covers all fields of stone diseases, from etiology to recurrence prevention. Here, we present a short summary of the first version of the guideline - consisting 43 clinical questions - and overview its key practical issues.