Epidemiological trends in urolithiasis: impact on our health care systems

The progressive increase of the social cost for treating urolithiasis could be related to an increased incidence of the disease and/or to an increase of costs for diagnosing and treating renal stones. In the course of the last century, the incidence of renal stones has progressively increased in Europe, North America, and other industrialised countries. This has been explained in terms of changing social conditions and the consequent changes in eating habits. In contrast, renal stones were less frequent than in developing countries of the world but in the last 20 years investigators began to report high incidences of upper urinary stone disease also from some areas of the Third World concurring with the changing of economic and social conditions. Each stone episode involves the costs for emergency visits, diagnostic work up, and medical or surgical treatment. Furthermore, we have to consider the costs of follow-up visits and the costs of testing and drugs for stone prevention. In adjunct of direct costs for diagnosis and treatment, we should also take into account the indirect individual and social cost of workdays lost. Finally, we should estimate the costs of complications and outcomes of treatment with particular attention to the costs of chronic renal failure secondary to stone disease. The strategy of treatment of each stone centre involves different costs for the treatment of each single stone episode. On the other hand the choice of treatment can be driven by National Health Systems and insurance companies by their policy of reimbursement for different procedures. The trends of renal stone incidence will have different impact on health care systems in different countries. In Europe and North America, the peak of incidence has been probably reached but the increase of costs for diagnosing and treating each single stone episode will still increase the social cost for managing stone disease. For this reason the actual objective should be to optimise protocols avoiding redundant or expensive diagnostic procedures or inappropriate treatments. In developing countries, the incidence of stone disease is still increasing and it could reach peaks even higher as a consequence of hot climate in some geographical areas. In those countries the demand for treatment of symptomatic stones could dramatically increase involving a huge financial outlay.