Racial variation in gender frequency of calcium urolithiasis.
Calcium oxalate stones are known to occur most frequently in the fifth and sixth decades of life and in a male-to-female ratio of approximately 2:1. However, previous data are from predominantly white populations or from multiracial populations that have included patients with infection stones. We reviewed a population of 444 consecutive patients (189 white, 123 black and 132 Hispanic) from 1 urban hospital treated by shock wave lithotripsy for symptomatic renal and ureteral calculi, and added a population of 260 patients treated at a university hospital in Japan. Patients with infection stones and those with uric acid or cystine stones were excluded. We found men to be more commonly afflicted in the white (62%) and Asian (64%) populations but noted a reversal of gender frequency in the black and Hispanic populations, of which women comprised 68% and 60% of the stone population, respectively. We conclude that calcium urolithiasis is more common in women than previously reported, and discuss the possible etiologies.
Michaels
E K
EK
Department of Urology, University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago.
Nakagawa
Y
Y
Miura
N
N
Pursell
S
S
Ito
H
H
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002129:Calcium Oxalate / Q000032:analysis*; D002641:Chicago / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008096:Lithotripsy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D044469:Racial Groups; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D014545:Urinary Calculi / Q000737:chemistry / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000628:therapy
D002129:Calcium Oxalate