About
Dr Raji Kooner
Urological surgeon with a long-standing interest in minimally invasive reconstructive kidney surgery, including robotic-assisted laparoscopic pyeloplasty (RALP) for pelvi-ureteric junction obstruction.
Training and practice
Dr Kooner is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in Urology (FRACS Urology). He consults in Darlinghurst, North Sydney, and Bowral, and operates across St Vincent's Private Hospital and Mater Hospital North Sydney. Day-to-day clinical work is coordinated through Urology NSW.
Pyeloplasty experience
Dr Kooner has performed robotic-assisted laparoscopic pyeloplasty since the hospital's early adoption of the robotic platform, and was among the first surgeons in NSW to routinely use the fourth robotic arm to retract the bowel in dismembered pyeloplasty. His case series - Robotically-assisted laparoscopic pyeloplasty (RALP): utilisation of the robotic 4th arm in dismembered pyeloplasty - a review of the first 9 cases in NSW (Al-Sameraaii, Raman, Yuen, Kooner) - has been presented nationally and internationally. Every patient in that series had complete relief of obstruction at follow-up, mirroring published international success rates above 95%.
Dr Kooner also performs laser endopyelotomy in selected patients, and continues to offer laparoscopic and open reconstruction for anatomies that are not suited to the robotic approach.
What Dr Kooner offers for UPJ obstruction
- Consultation to review CT urogram and MAG3 renogram findings, confirm obstruction, and discuss the role of surgery.
- Robotic-assisted dismembered pyeloplasty with the four-arm technique.
- Laparoscopic and open reconstruction when these are the better fit.
- Retrograde holmium laser endopyelotomy for shorter narrowings or previously treated patients.
- Stent removal and imaging follow-up to confirm durable drainage.
- Second opinions for patients who have already been offered surgery elsewhere.