INTRODUCTION: Nephrolithiasis in the United States has been on the rise over the past several decades.
Temperature has been shown to directly correlate with increased stone disease. We examine the association between climactic factors and monthly urolithiasis presentation rates for six years at a single institution in New York City.
METHODS: Emergency department data on patient visitations were collected along with patient demographics. Meteorological data was collected using the website "Weather Underground" (web address: http://www.wunderground.com). Average monthly temperature, dew point, precipitation and sea level pressure were obtained and relative humidity was calculated using dew point. Monthly urolithiasis visitations and the correlation of atmospheric factors were analyzed using an auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model.
RESULTS: The total number of renal colic visits to the hospital's emergency room from January 2007 through December 2012 tallied 3,647 visits. The lowest average monthly rate per 1,000 ED visits occurred in the month of February (28.8) and the highest in the month of August (43.8). There was a strong correlation between monthly presentation rate and temperature (p < 0.01) and relative humidity (p = 0.06) but not correlation with precipitation and sea level pressure. On multivariate ARIMA analysis, only average monthly temperature was significantly associated with monthly urinary calculi presentation rate among all comers (p < 0.01). The crude correlations held true for both sexes with respect to temperature but not for females in regards to relative humidity. The age groups of 21-44 and 45-64 had a rate correlation with temperature and all races correlated with temperature but only Caucasians had a weak correlation with relative humidity.
CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study examining the role of climate on stone presentation rate in a large city above the southern "stone belt" states. Temperature has a strong correlation with calculi presentation rate and relative humidity has a trend toward overall calculi presentation rate.
Written by:
Sirohi M, Katz B, Moreira DM, Dinlenc C. Are you the author?
Beth Israel Medical Center, Urology, New York, New York, United States.
Reference: J Endourol. 2013 Dec 29. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1089/end.2013.0680
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24372422
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