A coroner has called for new guidance around the management of large staghorn kidney stones after a woman died of sepsis following a high-risk surgical procedure on an infected stone.

Pauline Kessell, 53, died in 2015 of multiple organ failure resulting from septic shock two days after undergoing endoscopic pyeloscopy with laser lithotripsy for a 5cm staghorn calculus at Westmead Private Hospital in Sydney.