Major and Trace Elements in Human Kidney Stones: A Preliminary Investigation in Beijing, China

Kidney stone disease affects people globally, with its prevalence on the rise. Given the importance of elements’ function in formation of kidney stones, this study investigated major and trace element content in thirty kidney stone samples from patients in Beijing. The kidney stone samples included inorganic components (calcium oxalate and carbonate apatite) and organic components (uric acid). Results showed that Ca is much higher in inorganic components than organic components. Compared to inorganic components, uric acid has a very low content of elements except for Cu and Se, which may be derived from the liver. Carbonate apatite stones have a higher element content (such as Na, K, Sr, Zn, Rb, Ba, Li, and Ti) than calcium oxalate stones, especially enrichment of Mg. The principal components analysis (PCA) extracted three principal components (PCs) with total variances of 91.91%, including the PC1 (45.08%): Na-Li-Ti-Ba-Sr-Zn, PC2 (30.05%): Rb, K, Mg, and PC3 (16.78%): Cu-Se, indicating that there are co-precipitated processes of these elements by their specific properties. A different distribution of stone types in the three components indicates a significant discrepancy in their element content, which can be an essential reference for patient intake elements.

Preliminary Data on Geochemical Characteristics of Major and Trace Elements in Typical Biominerals: From the Perspective of Human Kidney Stones

The chemical composition of biominerals is essential for understanding biomineral formation and is regarded as an attractive subject in bio-mineralogical research on human kidney stones (urinary calculi). In order to obtain more geochemically interpreted data on biogenic minerals, mineralogical compositions and major and trace element concentrations of sixty-six kidney stone samples derived from kidney stone removal surgeries were measured. Infrared spectroscopy results showed that calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) and calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD) were the two main mineral components of kidney stones. Geochemical results indicated that major and trace element concentrations were present in the following order: Ca > Mg > Na > K > Zn > Fe > Pb > Ba > Cu > Ti > Mo > Cd > Cr. With the exception of Ca, Mg was the second-most abundant element. Zn exhibited higher concentrations relative to other trace elements, which suggests a potential substitution of calcium by metal ions with a similar charge and radius rather than by metals in kidney stone formation. Pb appeared in significantly higher concentrations than in previous studies, which indicates Pb enrichment in the environment. In order to discern multi-element relationships within kidney stones, principal component analysis was applied. Three principal components (PCs, eigenvalues >1) were extracted to explain 64.4% of the total variance. The first component exhibited positively correlated Na-Zn-Cr-Mo-Cd-Pb, while the second component exhibited more positively weighted Mg-K-Ba-Ti. Fe-Cu demonstrated a positive correlation in the third component. This study suggests that Ca exhibits a preference for uptake by oxalates during human urinary stone crystallization, while other alkali metals and alkaline earth metals precipitate with phosphate.

Chemolysis of calcium oxalate stones: study in vitro and possible clinical application

The flow cell modeling clinical conditions have been used to study the interaction between dilute chemolytic solutions and large calcium oxalate renal stones. The stone treatment with 5% disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate aqueous solutions or citrate buffer are found not to provide notable disruption of the samples studied. The significant improvement is reached with the mixed compositions containing both natural and synthetic chelating reagents:citrate and ethylenediaminetetraacetate ions as well as an antibiotic. Description of the chemolytic irrigation, numerical results and their possible clinical application are the main topic of the present research.