Chemical composition of urinary calculi from al-jouf province of saudi arabia

Abstract EN

Objective: Saudi Arabia has a high incidence of urolithiasis.

This study was undertaken to understand the composition and location of the stones from patients living in the province of Al-Jouf of Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Fifty-eight renal calculi from Al-Jouf area of Saudi Arabia were analyzed by semiquantitative titrimetric and colorimetric methods.

Results: The urinary stones were mainly localized in the bladder (36.3%) followed by the kidneys (27.6%) and were more frequent in males (88%).

The result of the analysis shows that the calculi belong to oxalate (84.5%), calcium (65.5%), magnesium (58.6%), urate (36.2%), phosphate (27.6%), carbonate (13.8%), ammonium (6.9%) and cystine (1.7%).

The most frequent chemical constituent was calcium oxalate (48.3%) followed by ammonium urate (22.4%), calcium phosphate (15.5%) and magnesium phosphate (13.8%) and pure form of uric acid (13.8%).

Oxalate containing stones were more frequent in males than in females while phosphates containing ones were less frequent in males than in females.

Conclusion: The findings of the present work indicate that urolithiasis in the province of Al-Jouf represent common urological problem and is correlated with the nutritional, environmental and genetic factors.