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Page 37
| Kidney Stones |
| Kidney stones are one of the most common disorders of the urinary tract and one of the most painful disorders to afflict humans. It is estimated that ten percent of all people in the United States will have a kidney stone at some point in time, with men having three or four times as many as women. |
| Kidney stones are not a modern disease; archeologists have found evidence of kidney stones in an Egyptian mummy estimated to be more than 7,000 years old. Nonetheless, as with many other disorders that reflect contemporary stress and diet, the number of persons in the United States with kidney stones has been increasing over the past 30 years. Caucasians are more prone to kidney stones than are African-Americans, and although stones occur more frequently in men, the percentage of women who get kidney stones has also been increasing. Kidney stones strike most of these people between the ages of 20 and 40. Once a person gets more than one stone, he or she is more likely to develop others. |
| Most kidney stones pass out of the body without any intervention by a physician. Cases that cause lasting symptoms or other complications may be treated by various methods, and several newer procedures use sound waves and lasers, reducing the need for traditional invasive surgery to only a small percentage of cases. |
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