View clinical trials related to Urinary Calculi.
Filter by:Multimodal functional magnetic resonance (MR) methods, including MR diffusion, Blood-Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) imaging and MR spectroscopy may provide complementary information about the functional status of a kidney. The researchers hypothesize that these non-invasive methods correlate with histology as "gold standard" and compete favorably with conventional in part invasive evaluation methods, and thus provide specific and early detection of kidney diseases of various etiologies, drug toxicity, or renal allograft dysfunction.
We wish to determine the best treatment for expulsion of lower ureteral stones. Which of the three major treatment protocols is the best treatment of conservative management of ureteral stones?
Urinary tract stones may form in the kidneys or along the ureteric tracts and when left untreated, may result in complications such as pain, bleeding, infection and obstruction. ESWL (extra-corporeal shock wave lithotripsy) has been shown to be an effective and safe method of treatment for kidney and ureteric stones in-situ. In our centre, ESWL is done on an outpatient basis with oral pain killers in the weeks following treatment. Patients are also instructed to increase their fluid intake during this period to expedite the clearance of stone fragments. There have been studies to show that pain caused by stones is due to smooth muscle spasm along the ureters, possibly mediated by alpha-receptors. Alpha-blockers have been shown to improve the expulsion of stones and also improve pain relief when used alone, or together with ESWL treatment. In our study, we seek to investigate if alpha-blocker therapy (Alfuzosin) increases stone free rates and improves pain control after ESWL for renal and ureteric stones. The potential benefits include a higher rate of stone clearance and better pain control
Examine the effects of cola on risks of kidney stones
Patients with upper ureteral or renal stones will be randomized to undergoing ureteroscopy with or without a ureteral access sheath. The sheath is designed to facilitate ureteroscope insertion and re-insertion, thus allowing fragments to be basketed out. Stone free rates at 3 months will be determined between the two groups. The investigators hypothesize that the use of the ureteral access sheath with ureteroscopy will result in improved stone free rates at 3 months compared to ureteroscopy without use of a sheath.
Urinary protein levels are not routinely measured in stone patients while there is strong evidence that proteins play a role in the etiology of stones. The purpose of this study is to examine the urinary and serum proteins of stone formers compared to healthy subjects utilizing the high throughput method, Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionization (SELDI). We hypothesize that there is a unique set of proteins expressed in serum and urine in stone patients that can be detected by SELDI. Ultimately, this will better our understanding of stone disease and help develop new prevention strategies.