Randall’s Plaque
This is our main article on Randall’s plaque, a papillary nidus that fosters growth of calcium stones. Other articles on this site illustrate plaque, and discuss plaque as a mechanism of calcium kidney stone production. But these have used plaque as part of...Chapter Two: How Kidney Stones Form
The video is a big enhancement of this article, I recommend it. The Structure of Kidneys Stones form inside the kidneys and the urine collecting system. How they form matters to patients because surgeons can see formation sites during stone removal by...
PATTERNS OF TISSUE MINERALIZATION
Three Pathways for Kidney Stone Formation All kidney stones share similar presenting symptoms, and urine supersaturation with respect to the mineral phase of the stone is essential for stone formation. These clinical similarities have made it difficult for researchers...
NEPHROCALCINOSIS
Not a few of you have heard this word and wondered what it meant for your health and management. Here is what it means. On the one hand, crystal deposits in kidney tissue. On the other, the name radiologists use when they see calcified regions overlying your kidneys, regions that are not clearly free stones but could be stones or tissue mineral. They really cannot tell with great precision. They never could. Modern high resolution ureteroscopy can tell, and surgeons everywhere have adopted this wonderful technology into common practice. You need to know this. Those of you who carry the diagnosis of nephrocalcinosis will all benefit from modern surgical visualization as opposed to indirect means of radiology.