Pediatric Nephrolithiasis: Trend, Evaluation and Management: A Systematic Review

Context: Pediatric nephrolithiasis is a noticeable cause of morbidity among children. Although, nephrolithiasis is a common disease in adults, its incidence has had a rising trend in children. Here in, we reviewed the current state regarding evaluation and management of children with nephrolithiasis in the last decade. Evidence Acquisition: The current literature regarding incidence and trend, along with diagnostic evaluation and management of children aged less than 18 years old with nephrolithiasis was searched on MEDLINE and Google scholar from January 2005 to March 2016. The search terms included, “kidney stone OR nephrolithiasis OR urolithiasis and Pediatric OR children”. English language and human studies were included. Expert opinions, editorials and case reports were excluded. Consequently, the authors independently reviewed the abstracts and the papers, which matched the inclusion criteria. Results: From a total of 1050 studies identified through the database search, 71 articles were selected for the review. According to the results of this review, pediatric nephrolithiasis has an increasing rate worldwide. Recent studies in this regard indicated that the number of girls with nephrolithiasis has increased. The change of life style, diet, obesity and metabolic syndrome and popular imaging study along with referral of the patients to pediatric centers could be contributed to this trend. Conclusions: Evaluation of patients, particularly young children, includes metabolic assessment. Stone analysis and 24-urine collection analysis are very helpful for determining underlying diseases. Medical as well as surgical approaches are used to prevent kidney injuries.