Renal excretion of oxalate in patients with chronic renal failure or nephrolithiasis.

This study was carried out in order to investigate renal oxalate excretion in a group of normal subjects (n = 40), a group of patients with uremia (n = 52) and a group with nephrolithiasis (n = 34). We found that the mean concentrations of oxalate in the 24-hour urine specimens of both patient groups were below the normal range. Although the renal creatinine clearance (CCR) was significantly decreased in some stone patients (n = 14), decreased renal oxalate clearance was noted only in those patients with severe renal failure. Thus, plasma oxalate was found to be elevated only in patients with chronic renal failure (mean +/- SD, 49.7 +/- 12.4 mumol/l), while the normal value was 17.0 +/- 6.7 mumol/l. The mean tubular excretion fraction of oxalate was also found to increase markedly in uremia with a mean of 26.3 +/- 17.3% (in normal subjects, 11.7 +/- 7.5%), but their mean daily urinary excretion of oxalate decreased to 63.2 mumol/day (mean value of 232.6 mumol/day in normal subjects). A positive correlation was observed between oxalate and creatinine, and between oxalate and calcium excretion, which was not found in normal subjects or patients with kidney stones. In nephrolithiasic patients, the daily excretion of oxalate, calcium and phosphate had no discernible increment and the mean excretory ratio of oxalate, calcium or phosphate to creatinine was all within normal limits. But when the CCR of stone patients was below 80 ml/min, their daily excretion of oxalate and calcium decreased significantly (p less than 0.01) and the excretory ratio of phosphate to creatinine markedly increased.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)