Urolithiasis and crohn's disease

To present an updated description of the relation between Crohn's disease (CD) and Urolithiasis.

A literature search for English-language original and review articles was conducted in Medline, Embase, and Cochrane databases in the month of December 2014 for papers either published or e-published up to that date, addressing the association between CD and urolithiasis as its consequence. All articles published in English language were selected for screening based on the following search terms: "CD," "renal calculus," "IBD," and "urolithiasis." We restricted the publication dates to the last 15 years (2000-2014).

In total, 901 patients were included in this review of which 95 were identified as having CD and urolithiasis simultaneously, for a total of 10.5%. Average age was 45.07 years old, irrespective of gender. 28.6% of patients received some kind of medical intervention without any kind of surgical technique involved, 50% of patients were submitted to a surgical treatment, and the remaining 21.4% were submitted to a combination of surgical and medical treatment. Urolithiasis and pyelonephritis incidence ranged from 4% to 23% with a risk 10-100 times greater than the risk for general population or for patients with UC, being frequent in patients with ileostomy and multiple bowel resections. We found that urolithiasis occurred in 95 patients from a total of 901 patients with CD (10.5%); 61.81% in men and 38.19% in women. Stone disease seems to present approximately 4-7 years after the diagnosis of bowel disease and CaOx seems to be the main culprit.

CD is a chronic, granulomatous bowel disease, with urolithiasis as the most common extraintestinal manifestation (EIM), particularly frequent in patients submitted to bowel surgery. This complication needs to be recognized and addressed appropriately, especially in patients with unexplained renal dysfunction, abdominal pain, or recurrent urinary tract infection. We believe this study to be an updated valuable review as most data related to this kind of EIM refers to articles published before 2000, most of them before 1990. These patients need to be followed up with a specific prevention plan to eliminate or mitigate the risk factors for stone disease, aiming at preventing its formation and its complications, preserving renal function, reducing morbidity, and ultimately improving their quality of life.