Kidney Stone Disease Research Paper

PURPOSE OF REVIEW
Kidney stone disease is affecting mankind from centuries and has been the silent cause of renal failures. There are plethoras of diseases that follow kidney stone and thus tackling kidney stone from its root can be challenging and can fathom out the unknown. The global increase rate has targeted 3% of all individuals to be effected by kidney stone and 12% of population during their lifetime. In India, approximately 5-7 million people encounter stone disease and this statistics makes kidney stone to be the commonest disease in our country.

1. INTRODUCTION

Kidney stone marked its existence thousands of years ago (Eknoyan, 2004) and since then more than half a million people go to emergency rooms for kidney stone problems

It is considered to be an essential step in stone formation. There exists inhibitors of crystallization in urine and also urine can hold large concentrations of solute above the metastable state (Malhota, 2008). The point of formation of product in urine is said to be when the concentration of solute increases further and a point is reached where it cannot be held in solution. Homogeneous nucleation is the process of nucleation in a pure solution (Finlayson, 1978). The mass production of crystals is known to be the secondary nucleation in which new crystals deposit on preexisting crystal surface of similar type.
3.1.2 Growth
The next major step in stone formation is crystal growth. There is a reduction in the potential energy of the atoms or molecules when they bind to each other which are the driving force of crystallization. The properties that determine the crystal growth are molecular size, physical properties of the material, shape of the molecule, pH and defects that may form in the crystal structure. Growth of crystals is considered one of the prerequisites for particle formation(Qiu et al.,

Medical history of patient and a complete family history contribute to identify conditions associated with increased risk of kidney stone such as diabetes mellitus, gout, bowel surgery etc. However, the physical examination is subsequent to the differential diagnosis done based on the clinical clues listed in table 1 (Pietrow and Karellas, 2006).
4.2 Surgical interventions for Kidney stone
Stones of size less than 5mm diameter have greater chance of being passed, however of size more than 7mm requires surgical intervention. Open surgery was the most common treatment for urolithiasis, which is now taken over by less invasive treatments.
4.2.1 Shock wave lithotripsy
This method was introduced in the 1980s which revolutionized the treatment of nephrolithiasis. In this method the stone is fragmented by shock wave generated by a source external to the patient by producing mechanical stresses or indirectly by the collapse of cavitation