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Last updated: 02/17/2009

Demographics

For an unknown reason, the number of persons in the United States developing kidney stones has been increasing over the past 20 years. White people are more prone to develop kidney stones than are persons of color. Although stones occur more frequently...

in men, the number of women who develop them has been increasing over the past 10 years, causing the ratio to change. Kidney stones strike most people between the ages of 20 and 40. Once persons develop more than one stone, they are more likely to develop others. Lithotripsy is not required for treatment in all cases of kidney stones.



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Lithotripsy is a medical procedure that uses shock waves to break up stones that form in the kidney, bladder, ureters, or gallbladder. There are several forms of lithotripsy. The most common is extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL). Extracorporeal means outside the body.


From http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007113.htm

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It's a controversial arena -- the PSA is a marker of prostate bulk and size, but it's highly expressed in benign prostate disease as well as cancer -- so in that context it's not a specific marker.


-Arul Chinnaiyan

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