Recurrence of renal lithiasis

Abstract

Objective: It is well known that all renal stones are associated with a high recurrence rate. The aim of this paper is to study the different types of renal calculi recurrence.

Material and methods: The study included 220 patients who had produced two or more renal calculi over a period of <5 years (total 634 calculi). The procedure used to study renal calculi involved appropriate combinations of stereoscopic microscopy with infrared spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy coupled with X-ray microanalysis.

Results and conclusion: Recurrent stone-formers can be classified into two large groups: those who always produce the same type of calculus (the most common type of recurrence was calcium oxalate dihydrate, followed by calcium oxalate monohydrate non-papillary and calcium oxalate monohydrate papillary calculi); and those who produce different types of renal calculi (the most frequent recurrences in this group were the changes calcium oxalate dihydrate-->calcium oxalate dihydrate/hydroxyapatite and calcium oxalate monohydrate-->calcium oxalate dihydrate).