Incidence of asymptomatic renal stones among medical students - an ultrasonographic screening study.

Uzma Rasool; Ashfaq ul Hassan; Arish Nazir Shora; Mohd Farooq Mir; Sajad Hameed; Manmeet Kour

Volume : VII, Issue : VIII, August - 2018

Incidence of asymptomatic renal stones among medical students - an ultrasonographic screening study.

Uzma Rasool, Ashfaq Ul Hassan, Arish Nazir Shora, Mohd Farooq Mir, Sajad Hameed, Manmeet Kour

Abstract :

Stones may be clinically silent for a long time. However, when they grow beyond a size of spontaneous clearance through the urinary tract, they may cause infection, obstruction, permanent kidney damage, and finally loss of the kidney. Therefore, it would be most helpful to find stones in early stages of their growth, where they are not yet clinically symptomatic. An easy to use, harmless and accurate means for such a screening would be a renal ultrasound. So the purpose of this study is to figure out incidence of such asymptomatic renal stones among the medical student.Subject and method: For this study, 30 students underwent an abdominal diagnostic ultrasound at the Dept. of Radiology of the SKIMS medical college and Hospital, students with known kidney or urinary stone diseases were excluded from the study.Result: On pre-ultrasound assessment, none of the patients reported previous kidney or urinary stone disease. Yet, stones were discovered in 1 patient (3.3%) and were predominantly located in the left kidney. Conclusions: Urinary stones have the potential for becoming clinically symptomatic and could lead to infection, obstruction, renal damage and, in the worst scenario, to the loss of a kidney. This, however, might be effectively prevented if potentially significant stones could be detected prior to the onset of symptoms and be treated appropriately.