Kidney stones are on the rise, particularly among adolescents, females, and African-Americans in the U.S. This marks a striking change from the historic pattern in which middle-aged white men were at highest risk for the painful condition. While the overall increase in kidney stones in children and adolescents has been known, a recent study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology provided greater clarity on the specific groups of patients at greatest risk by analyzing age, race and sex characteristics among children and adults in South Carolina over a 16-year period, from 1997 to 2012.
Lead author Dr. Gregory Tasian, Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and an attending pediatric urologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, joins Dr. Brian McDonough to discuss this startling trend, the factors that may be driving it, and appropriate preventive and treatment strategies for kidney stones.
