A new study conducted by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania found that an increasing number of teens, females and African-Americans are developing kidney stones, but found no particular cause for the increases, reported Fox News on Friday.
The researchers analyzed data of 4.6 million South Carolina residents, gathered from 1997 until 2012, and found 152,925 cases of kidney stones, with an annual increasing number of kidney stones of 16 percent. Cases in teens were also observed to increase by 4.7 percent each year, while women had a three percent increase and 2.9 percent increase for African-Americans.
"The fact that stones were once rare and are now increasingly common could contribute to the inappropriate use of diagnostic tests such as CT scans for children with kidney stones," said leader of the study Dr. Gregory Tasian, a pediatric urologist and epidemiologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, "since healthcare providers historically have not been accustomed to evaluating and treating children with kidney stones."
The study, published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, also revealed that kidney stone cases were more common in females between ages 10 to 24 than in males of similar age bracket. Also, past the age of 25, kidney stones were found to be more prevalent in men.
Kidney stone cases were also observed to increase by 15 percent more in blacks than in whites every five years over the duration of the study.
"The emergence of kidney stones in children is particularly worrisome, because there is limited evidence on how to best treat children for this condition," said Tasian.
"The fact that stones were once rare and are now increasingly common could contribute to the inappropriate use of diagnostic tests such as CT scans for children with kidney stones, since health care providers historically have not been accustomed to evaluating and treating children with kidney stones," he explained.
"These trends of increased frequency of kidney stones among adolescents, particularly females, are also concerning when you consider that kidney stones are associated with a higher risk of chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular and bone disease, particularly among young women," Tasian added.