Association between Pulp Stones and Kidney Stones: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Introduction: A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed to evaluate the association between pulp stones and kidney stones.

Methods: A search for observational studies was performed in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, and the gray literature. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for Risk of Bias criteria were used to evaluate the internal quality of the included studies. A fixed-effects meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the association between the conditions.

Results: A total of 213 studies were identified after the removal of duplicates. Of these, 9 studies were selected after screening the titles and abstracts. Finally, after full-text reading for qualitative analysis, 7 studies were selected, and of these, 2 were used in the meta-analysis. A significant association was found between pulp stones and kidney stones (1.97 [95% confidence interval, 1.21-3.18]; P < .05).

Conclusions: This study revealed an association between pulp stones and kidney stones. Further well-designed studies should be conducted in order to confirm whether pulp stones are predictive indicators of undiagnosed kidney stones.

Keywords: Dental pulp calcification; kidney calculi; kidney stones; meta-analysis; pulp stones; systematic review.