Kidney stone cases in Chennai kids on rise
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Nephrologists in Chennai report a disturbing rise in the number of kidney stone cases among very young children and even infants.
In the case of small babies with kidney stones, doctors often find other family members who are also prone to developing recurring kidney stones—however, the cause is not known.
Soaring temperatures, humid climes and poor dietary choices are now being pegged as the reasons behind the high incidence of this painful ailment.
Kidney stones are essentially crystals of calcium and uric acid that may not have any symptoms in the kidney, but can cause excruciating pain when they move to the urethra.
“Even a decade ago, we only used to see one paediatric case of kidney stones in a month but nowadays, I treat six to eight children each week. Some of them present with blood in the urine, when the stone has torn the child’s urethra.
Many children also come with ‘hypercalceria’, a precursor to kidney stones,” says Dr N. Prahlad, pediatric nephrologist at Dr Mehta’s Children’s Hospital here. Children who have recurring urinary infections with fever and kids who complain of pain in the abdomen, pelvis or flank should be checked up for kidney stones.
Dr R Vijayakumar, chief urologist at RG Stone Urology Hospital, stresses that a child needs to drink around 75 ml of water per kilogram of his body weight—a baby that weights 11 kg needs to drink at least 1 litre of water per day, to flush out salts from the kidneys.
“A person’s diet plays an important role, and kids these days consume a lot of salty, spicy food—especially processed foods high in preservatives.
Red meat should also be avoided, because of its high uric acid content,” warns Dr Vijayakumar, whose team recently performed a minimally invasive procedure to remove kidney stones from a two-year-old , who had kidney stones measuring over 2.5 cm.
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