Fig. 5

Time-course change of pain scale of complete laparoscopic nephroureterectomy and conventional nephroureterectomy. Postoperative pain was assessed using a numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) every day during the hospitalization and at the first outpatient visit day (indicated with “day 30”). The data included four patients undergoing complete laparoscopic radical nephroureterectomy (RNU), as shown in Table 1, and four patients undergoing the conventional retroperitoneal laparoscopic nephrectomy combined with an open bladder cuff by the same surgeon, during the same period, as shown in Table 2