Abstract
Recently, the number of patients with gout and hyperuricemia has increased in Japan; therefore, we expected to find an increase in the number of uric acid stones in our study. We examined the frequency of uric acid stones and its relationship with the number of patients with gout and hyperuricemia or their nutritional state. We reviewed the records of 5477 patients with urolithiasis who visited our hospital between 1975 and 1993. During this period, the incidence of calcium-containing stones remained at 86%. The percentage incidence of uric acid and urate stones during the same period showed a steady increase to 7.2%. This increase was computed to be 3-fold that of 1975. The male gender dominates among the patients with uric acid and urate stones. We believe that the increases in the incidence of gout and hyperuricemia and alcohol consumption are responsible for this trend.
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