In 285 patients with prevesical ureteral stone and 247 with upper ureteral stone, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) was performed with the Dornier MPL 9000 ultrasonographic targeting device. All these stones were treated "in situ" and without regional or general anaesthesia. At 3-month follow-up 96.8% of the patients treated for prevesical stone and 95.5% of those with upper ureteral stone were stone-free. ESWL was repeated once or twice in 99 cases; the average number of sessions was 1.2 for all patients (similar for prevesical and upper ureteral stones). Sparse use of ureteral stenting (6.2% of cases) did not seem to reduce the efficacy of ESWL or increase complications or need for retreatment. Intravenous fentanyl analgesia was given to 40.9% of the patients and intravenous infusion of a furosemide solution was employed in many cases to give adequate dilation of the urinary tract. In situ echo-guided ureteral ESWL is simple, safe and efficacious and can be the technique of choice for sonographically detectable ureteral stone.