Urinary Stone Analysis With Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (520Cases)

Urinary stone analysis is important technology in determining the possible etiology and the pathophysiology of stone formation. A better understanding of the stone composition may be helpful in preventing urinary stone formation. From September2009to December2011,520urolithiasis patients from Urology Department in Wuhan Tongji Hospital after surgery treatment or after shock wave lithotripsy, or after stones spontaneous passage were taken part in the study. Stone compositional analysis was performed using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The results showed that the most frequent composition in173pure stone (33.3%) was calcium oxalate (19.8%), followed by calcium phosphate (9.2%), xantine (2.5%), L-cystine (1%), silica (0.4%), uric acid (0.2%) and quartz (0.2%).347(66.7%) were mixed stone, calcium oxalate was the most commonly major component (34%), followed by calcium phosphate (22.7%), uric acid and cystine. In our case, the most commonly found pure stone was calcium oxalate, while the most frequent mixed stone was calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate mixture. The relationship between stone location, gender, age and stone components were showed. We present some results of analysis of urinary tract stones extracted from patients using FTIR spectroscopy and show specific features of urinary tract stone composition and may help improve understanding of the urolithiasis pathophysiology.