Who Gets Kidney Stones?
There appears to be an increase in the number of cases of kidney stones in recent years. About 7 to 21 people out of every 10,000 (or less than two tenths of one percent) of the population will have a kidney stone attack each year. In 1985 there were 1 million cases of kidney stones in the United States. Four out of five new kidney stone cases (80 percent) are among men; only 20 percent are women.
These account for about 7 to 10 of every 1000 hospital admissions (or nearly one percent). In 2004 a reported 171,000 hospital stays were due to kidney stones. The estimated number of doctor visits and outpatient hospital visits by adults aged 20 or older with calculus of kidney and ureters as a listed diagnosis was 2.7 million visits in 2000. That same year the cost for evaluation and treatment of kidney stones totalled $2.07 billion.
The prevalence of kidney stones seems to increasing. In the period from 1976-1980 4.9% of men and 2.8% of women aged 20 to 74 self-reported having had kidney stones over their entire lifetime. But then in the more recent period from 1988-1994 6.3% of men and 4.1% of women aged 20 to 74 reported having had kidney stones. And more causaisans have kidney stones than Afro-Americans.
