Pediatric Urolithiasis in the 1970s

Abstract

We studied retrospectively 38 children who presented with urolithiasis between 1970 and 1977. The sex ratio was 1:1 and the mean age was 9.4 years. A positive family history was found in 36 per cent. Urinary tract abnormalities predisposing to infective urolithiasis was found in 7 children (18 per cent) but required voiding cystography for detection in 5. Hypercalcemia was found in 3 of 32 (8 per cent), while 28 of the 38 patients (74 per cent) had idiopathic urolithiasis. Idiopathic hypercalciuria was found in 5 of 13 patients (38 per cent) with idiopathic urolithiasis. Investigation of urolithiasis in children should include voiding cystography and measurement of urine calcium, as well as oxalate and uric acid, under home diet conditions.

Cystinuria in Children

“…The frequency of cystine calculi that we encountered in all of our paediatric cases of lithiasis is highest when compared with other reports that we were able to find in literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. This can be explained, in part, by the fact Recently glutamine has also been proposed in the treatment of cystine calculi [25] but its effectiveness has not been confirmed by others [26].…”

Epidemiology of Urolithiasis

“…V AHLENSIECK (1978) failed to find any age-related peak, ECKSTEIN (196S) and HELBIG and GHARIB (1969) found the greatest prevalence among 2 to S-year-olds. CHURCHILL et al (1980), HOKO (1978) andJANCA et al (1978) found the same of9 to 14-year-olds.…”

“…Figures vary between 14% (SINNO et al 1979) and 6% (SCHNEIDER and OTTO- UN-GER 1979;VAHLENSIECK 1978). Such disorders include hypercalciuria, found by CHURCHILL et al (1980) in 38% of their pediatric urolithiasis patients, more rarely disorders of purine metabolism or primary hyperoxaluria and mainly cystinuria.…”

Urolithiasis in the Pediatric Age Group

“…Spontaneous passage of urinary stones in childhood has been reported to occur in 8% to 50% of cases. 11,18 In our study, 10 of 35 (28.6%) patients with stones less than 10 millimeters passed their stones spontaneously. This included one patient with bilateral kidney stones and renal tubular acidosis treated with medical therapy, and 8 patients with small ureteric stones passed spontaneously while one had a stone in the anterior urethra that was removed manually.…”