Stone Analysis — in the Doctor’S Office or in a Specialized Laboratory?

Knowledge of the cause of calculus formation is a pre-requisite for an effective treatment programme to prevent recurrence. Often clinical and laboratory investigations do not provide the necessary information, and conclusions can be drawn only retrospectively from the type of stone. Hence, every available urinary stone should be analyzed. There are two competing techniques (Table 1), which differ in cost, effort and precision of analysis and which may be used for assessing further treatment and prophylactic measures. The purpose of this study is to determine which to recommend to urologists and physicians who normally rely on qualitative stone analysis, but who have centralized facilities available for X-ray diffraction, infra red spectroscopy and crystal optics.