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Determining the true burden of kidney stone disease

Nature Reviews Nephrology volume 16, pages 736–746 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The incidence and prevalence of kidney stones have increased over the past four decades. However, the diagnosis of ‘kidney stone’ can range from an incidental asymptomatic finding of limited clinical significance to multiple painful episodes of ureteral obstruction with eventual kidney failure. Some general strategies may be useful to prevent the recurrence of kidney stones. In particular, greater attention to kidney stone classification, approaches to assessing the risk of recurrence and individualized prevention strategies may improve the clinical care of stone formers. Although there have been some advances in approaches to predicting the recurrence of kidney stones, notable challenges remain. Studies of kidney stone prevalence, incidence and recurrence have reported inconsistent findings, in part because of the lack of a standardized stone classification system. A kidney stone classification system based on practical and clinically useful measures of stone disease may help to improve both the study and clinical care of stone formers. Any future kidney stone classification system should be aimed at distinguishing asymptomatic from symptomatic stones, clinically diagnosed symptomatic stone episodes from self-reported symptomatic stone episodes, symptomatic stone episodes that are confirmed from those that are suspected, symptomatic recurrence from radiographic recurrence (that is, with radiographic evidence of a new stone, stone growth or stone disappearance from presumed passage) and determine stone composition based on mutually exclusive categories.

Key points

  • Kidney stones can range from an asymptomatic incidental finding with limited clinical significance to a painful recurrent disorder with substantial morbidity.

  • The prevalence and incidence of kidney stones has increased worldwide, but some of this increase is due to improvements in medical imaging with increased utilization of CT.

  • Classifying stone formers according to their clinical presentation and stone composition can help to predict the risk of future symptomatic stone episodes and aid personalization of stone prevention strategies.

  • The wide range of recurrence rates reported between different studies might largely be due to the use of different definitions that include various degrees of symptomatic evidence of recurrence and/or radiographic manifestations of recurrence.

  • Risk factors for symptomatic kidney stone recurrence include younger age, male gender, family history of stones, obesity, pregnancy, rarer stone compositions, higher radiographic kidney stone burden, number of past symptomatic kidney stone episodes and fewer years since last kidney stone episode.

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Fig. 1: The classification of kidney stones according to stone composition.
Fig. 2: Progression and pathways of kidney stone disease.
Fig. 3: Cumulative risk of symptomatic recurrence resulting in clinical care after symptomatic kidney stone episodes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Charat Thongprayoon & Andrew D. Rule

  2. Department of Urology, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Amy E. Krambeck

  3. Division of Epidemiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Andrew D. Rule

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C.T. and A.D.R. researched data for the article. All authors contributed to discussion of the article’s content, writing and review/editing of the manuscript before submission.

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Related links

Recurrence of Kidney Stone (ROKS) tool: https://qxmd.com/calculate/calculator_438/roks-recurrence-of-kidney-stone-2018

Glossary

Shockwave lithotripsy

A procedure for treating stones in the kidney or ureter using a high-energy shock wave from outside the body to break stones into fragments that are small enough to spontaneously pass in urine.

Ureteroscopy

A procedure in which a small scope is inserted into the ureter via the urethra and bladder to diagnose and treat a variety of problems in the urinary tract. In the case of urinary stones, it allows the urologist to actually look into the ureter or kidney, find the stone and remove or fragment the stone.

Nephrolithotomy

A procedure used to remove kidney stones from the body when they cannot pass spontaneously.

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Thongprayoon, C., Krambeck, A.E. & Rule, A.D. Determining the true burden of kidney stone disease. Nat Rev Nephrol 16, 736–746 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-020-0320-7

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