Clinical Symptoms of Kidney Stones

Kidney stone is not very hard to understand and as its name indicates, it means stones in the kidneys. Among the organs of urinary system, kidney is usually the part where stones are most likely to form. Kidney stone is a common disease in the urinary system and there is one person having kidney stone out of every 20 people.

Though kidney stone is a benign disease, sometimes it can obstruct the urinary tract and cause dysfunction in urination, pain and hydronephrosis and in severe conditions, it can lead to renal failure or even tumors.

The peak onset age of kidney stone is 20-50 and the ratio between male and female is 2:1 to 3:1.

Kidney stone patients may have a variety of clinical symptoms:

1. No symptoms. Kidney stone might be found out during physical examination and when it is small, no symptoms can be caused.

2. Pain in renal areas. Renal colic is the typical symptom of kidney stone. Usually patients will have sharp pain on one side after strenuous activities or at night and it just like cutting with knife. At the same time, there can be pains in lower abdomen, inner thigh, vomiting and nausea, paleness, etc. The pain is caused by the obstruction of the renal pelvis or ureter by the stones and some patients can find stone in their urine after the pain.

3. Hematuria. About 80% patients will have blood in urine and only small parts are gross hematuria and most need laboratory test of urine.

4. Hydronephrosis. If the stone obstruct the renal pelvis and ureter, it can cause hydronephrosis. Long term hydronephrosis can damaged the kidneys and if it affects bilateral kidneys, it can even cause renal failure.

5. Fever. Kidney stones can be caused by bacterial infections and kidney stone can in turn cause bacterial infection and fever. Due to the obstruction of the urinary tract, the bacteria can not be discharged and in severe conditions, it can cause sepsis and threaten the patients’ life.