Investigations of Renal Calculi Using New Methods

Appearance of kidney stones causes numerous problems in functioning of urinary tract. It is necessary to identify its growth mechanism in order to find successful ways of prevention. The main components building kidney stones are already well known 1 . But research of bulk composition was not successful enough to develop useful and universal prevention methods. Such result asks for better and more precise methods for investigation of kidney stones. Established methods for investigation of renal calculi are IR spectroscopy 2 , X-ray diffraction and optical microscopy. These methods are sufficient and adequate to identify the most frequent and common substances, which can appear in human kidneys. Such identification was important to recognize the most important purposes and mechanisms for forming minerals inside the kidneys and to calculate the statistical abundance of each mineral in observed population. Development of different new methods for investigation of solid-state materials permit better insight in reasons for specific crystallization and mechanisms of its growth. Further research of renal stones would surely need implementation of additional methods like: scanning electron microscopy, electron dispersive spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and tomography, which can identify new subordinate phases.