[Epidemiology of urinary lithiasis]

The objective of this study was to analyse the epidemiological profile of urinary stones based on one thousand cases observed in our institution over a 10-year period. The mean age of the patients was 45 years and two-thirds of patients were males. The kidney was the commonest site of stones, in 57.8% of cases. The stone was radiopaque in 86.4% of cases and was a staghorn calculus in 12.2% of cases. An associated renal malformation was observed in 10.4% of cases. Urinary stones is therefore a common disease, essentially observed in a young population and characterized by recurrence. It therefore constitutes a public health problem and prevention consists of detecting recurrences and treating stone-inducing factors.