Metabolic abnormalities associated with calyceal diverticular stones

To review the metabolic analyses of patients with calyceal diverticular stones who had surgical treatment of their calculi and to examine the effect of selective medical therapy on stone recurrence, as recent reports suggest that metabolic abnormalities contribute to stone development.

In all, 37 patients who had endoscopic treatment of symptomatic calyceal diverticular calculi were retrospectively reviewed. Stone composition and initial 24-h urine collections (24-h urinary volumes, pH, calcium, sodium, uric acid, oxalate, citrate, and the number of abnormalities/patient per collection) were compared with 20 randomly selected stone-forming patients (controls) with no known anatomical abnormalities. Stone formation rates before and after the start of medical therapy were calculated in the patients available for follow-up.

Twelve of the diverticulum patients (five men and seven women) had complete 24-h urine collections, all of whom had at least one metabolic abnormality. Seven patients had hypercalciuria, four had hyperuricosuria and three had mild hyperoxaluria. The most common abnormality was a low urine volume; 11 of the 12 patients had urine volumes of <2000 mL/day (range 350-1950). Ten patients had hypocitraturia in at least one of the two 24-h urine samples; seven had low urinary citrate levels (172-553 mg/day) on both samples. The findings were similar in the control group. The diverticulum patients had 3.1 abnormalities/patient, and the controls had 2.9 abnormalities/patient (P > 0.05). No patients had gouty diathesis and none developed cystine stones. Stone analyses were similar in the two groups; both developed either calcium oxalate or mixed calcium oxalate/calcium phosphate stones. Six patients were followed for a mean of 23.1 months while on selective medical therapy; only one passed any additional stones, thought to be existing calculi, for a remission rate of five of six (83%).

All patients with symptomatic calyceal diverticular stones who had comprehensive metabolic evaluation had metabolic abnormalities. There were similar abnormalities in the control random stone-formers. The abnormalities were corrected with selective medical therapy, as shown by the high remission rate. We recommend that, for patients with symptomatic calyceal diverticular calculi, a metabolic evaluation should be considered to determine stone forming risk factors.