%0 Journal Article
%T Sonographic Assessment of Urolithiasis in University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Nigeria
%A Kasonde Bowa
%J Archive of "Annals of African Medicine".
%D 2017
%R 10.4103/aam.aam_36_16
%X The current study examines an interesting and important area in urology practice in Nigeria in particular, but in Africa as a whole. In general, stone disease in Africa has been known to be much lower than in European countries.[1] This is related to dietary and weather pattern. The western diet is understood to have more indigestible additives which are excreted in the urinary system. In Africa, high levels of stone disease have been typically seen in the area called stone belt, which includes much of Egypt.[1,2] Therefore, while in developed countries the urological subspecialty of stone disease has developed, this has not been so in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. In previous years, the typical patient has been the European patient presenting with small upper tract stones.[2,3] Therefore, African urology practice in much of Sub-Saharan Africa has focused mostly on prostate disease and urethral disease. Some pediatric urology diseases such as hypospadias may also be added to this list. There has been little investment in the evaluation and closed management of stone disease simply because it has not been previously seen as common. The common location of stone has been in the lower urinary tract. These have resulted as complications of poorly managed prostate or urethral disease. The chemical composition has been of infective stones (triple phosphate) which tend to be radiopaque and are investigated by plain X-ray (KUB). The current study shows a change in this pattern to an increase in prevalence, a change in presentation, and a change in stone evaluation. It is worthy of note that these stones are increasingly, more likely to be metabolic or dietary, radiolucent, and involving the upper tract. This changing pattern of stone disease is likely to influence urology practice in Africa in the coming years.[4,5
%U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579902/