Urinary Stone Disease in Southeast Nigeria: Current Trends in Prevalence and Distribution

The prevalence of urolithiasis is increasing globally with higher rates noted in the Western world. This rising trend has also been reported in Asia and Africa. The rise in Africa has been attributed to global climate change and growing socioeconomic status. However, epidemiological studies on urolithiasis are limited in our setting.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of urolithiasis and generate data in this regard.

This was a retrospective study carried out between January 2015 and March 2024. The medical records of patients who had abdominopelvic computerized tomography (CT) scans for either urological or nonurological conditions were retrieved for this study. The age, gender, presenting symptom, anatomic site, and dimension of the identified stone were recorded. Analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.

The records of 2478 subjects were retrieved for this study. A total number of 356 subjects had urolithiasis, which gave a prevalence of 14.4%. The mean age of the subjects was 50.0 ± 15.0 years. The number of male subjects was 207 (58.1%) while that of female subjects was 149 (41.9%) with a male to female ratio of 1.4:1. The most common symptom the subjects experienced was flank pain (42.4%), while the most common location of the stone was in the right kidney (46%).

The prevalence of urinary stone disease in our environment is rising. This could pose both health and economic challenges.