PURPOSE: The incidence of urolithiasis has been proven to be increasing in the adult population, and evidence to date suggests the same in the pediatric population.
Obesity is clearly linked to adult urolithiasis but studies of pediatric patients have been less conclusive. We hypothesize that otherwise healthy pediatric stone patients from our population will have an increased body mass index (BMI) compared to a control population, and that obese pediatric stone formers will have results on metabolic assessment that are distinct from non-obese stone formers.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective chart review of all upper tract urolithiasis patients aged 10-17 years without co-morbidities from 2006 to 2011. The BMI of our population was compared to state data, and 24 hour urine collection results were compared between the obese and non-obese stone patients.
RESULTS: The obesity rate in 117 urolithiasis patients did not differ significantly from the obesity rate derived from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health (Observed/Expected Ratio 1.11, 95% CI 0.54-1.95). Using t-test and chi-square comparisons, overall 24-hour urine collection data did not show statistically significant differences.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results do not link obesity as a risk factor for pediatric urolithiasis in otherwise healthy patients. We also found no substantial metabolic differences between healthy non-obese stone formers versus obese patients. While the pediatric literature is mixed, our study supports the majority of published studies that also failed to establish a link between pediatric urolithiasis and obesity.
Written by:
Roddy JT, Ghousheh AI, Christensen MA, Durkee CT. Are you the author?
Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Reference: J Urol. 2013 Oct 3. pii: S0022-5347(13)05563-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.juro.2013.09.064
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24095904
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