The relationship between total urinary testosterone and renal calculi

It is generally known that age and sex are risk factors of urolithiasis. Therefore the total urinary testosterone concentrations of persons with and without renal stones were investigated by means of radioimmunoassay. The total testosterone level of the first morning midstream urine was comparable with 24 urine samples of 16 healthy persons (rs = 0.9618). Investigation of the total urinary testosterone confirmed that the concentration is age dependent. A distinct decrease in total testosterone was observed in elderly persons. Therefore the total testosterone concentrations of the two groups, with and without stones, were studied within the same age interval (P = 0.8292). The the testosterone level differed significantly for these two groups (P = 0.0006). In general, the testosterone level of the kidney stone patients was lower than that of their healthy counterparts. In order to determine whether this variation in testosterone concentration would affect the urinary urokinase activity, a correlation study was undertaken. A positive correlation was found between the total urinary testosterone concentrations and the activity of urokinase (rs = 0.7305). It therefore seems that the total urinary testosterone concentrations may play a role in the pathogenesis of the multifactorial disease, urolithiasis.