Pediatric urolithiasis in Taiwan: a nationwide study, 1997-2006

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the prevalence, incidence, associated risk factors, and treatment of pediatric urolithiasis in Taiwan.

Methods: The present study used a subset of the National Health Insurance Research Database, known as the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005, which contains the data for all paid medical benefit claims from 1997 to 2006 for a subset of 1 million beneficiaries randomly drawn from the population of 22.72 million individuals during any part of the calendar year 2005. Our analysis included the data of all newly diagnosed pediatric patients with an "International Classification of Disease, 9th revision," diagnosis of urolithiasis from 1997 through 2006.

Results: A total of 1679 pediatric subjects who had newly diagnosed urolithiasis without a previous attack were identified from 1997 to 2006 as the study sample. Of the 1679 patients, 808 were boys (48.1%) and 871 were girls (51.9%). The incidence rate of urolithiasis in 2005 was 0.047%. The peak age of pediatric stone occurrence in the study sample was 15-18 years (49.6%). The most common associated disease was urinary tract infection (34.1% of all subjects). The occurrence rate of pediatric urolithiasis correlated significantly with the urbanization level of the residence and geographic area.

Conclusion: Using a nationwide, population-based study provides important clinical and epidemiologic information regarding pediatric urolithiasis. Additional studies are warranted to determine the effect of geographic area and urbanization level on the occurrence of pediatric stone disease.