Objective:

To investigate the correlations between abdominal aortic calcifications (AAC) and the underlying urinary metabolic abnormalities in stone-formers (SF).

Methods:

Patients with a 24 h urinary panel and computed tomography scan were included. The Kauppila Score (KS) was used to quantitatively assess AAC; clinical data and stone information were also recorded. The Spearman correlation was utilized.

Results:

A total of 54 patients were included, the mean age was 46.4±11.2, 75.9% were female, and 59.3% had AAC. Hypertension and AAC were associated (p=0.026), and the KS was higher in patients with hypertension. Hypocitraturia (98.1%) and hypercalciuria (16.7%) were the most frequent urinary abnormalities, but they were unrelated to AAC (p>0.05). The 24 urinary panel, blood biochemistry, stone burden and hardness, and body mass index were not correlated to the KS (p>0.05).

Limitations:

This work had the following limitations: its retrospective nature, a relatively small sample, and the lack of an automated informatics-based assessment of AAC.

Conclusion:

The link between cardiovascular diseases and kidney stones is still to be elucidated. Our finding differs from the other few studies reported on the literature, as no correlation was found between AAC and the urinary metabolic abnormalities in SF.

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