Nephro Flash Vol-5, No-2, 2019

Kidney Stones: A Preface Kidney stone disease is the most common disease of the urinary tract, with a history dating back to 4000 B.C.1 These stones can develop anywhere in the urinary tract – kidney, ureter or urinary bladder – with symptoms ranging from none to severe pain.2 In recent times, kidney stone disease has become a major economic and health burden worldwide, with increasing prevalence and recurrence rates globally.1,3 It affects about 12% of the world population at some point in their life, with a predilection towards males and age group of 20-49 years. In India, about 12% of the population is expected to have urinary stones, out of which 50% might result in loss of kidney functions.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) pose as an important public health problem with considerable economic burden of more than 6 million US dollars.1 The global annual incidence is approximately 150 million cases; around 40% women and 12% men experienced atleast one symptomatic UTI in their life‑time.1 Patients with UTI are often treated empirically and the physician’s choice of antibiotics typically depends on national treatment recommendations. Therefore, antibiotic resistance has become a major problem in UTI mostly due to overprescription by practitioners.2 The spectrum of bacteria isolated from patients with UTI worldwide has remained largely unchanged; E.coli followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae being the most prevalent microorganisms. However, there have been significant changes in the resistance patterns of uropathogens over the past few decades.