Urinary calculi in children.

Forty-seven cases of urinary calculi were seen, in children from the Western Galilee region, in the last thirteen years. This disease was found in very high frequency in Oriental Jewish children, as well as in Arab children (0.29/1,000 and 0.26/1,000, respectively), and is rare in Jewish children of Ashkenazic European origin (0.04/1,000). These facts were known from previous studies. The striking finding in this survey was the high family incidence of urinary calculi. In 21 of 47 cases from this series one or more family members (up to second cousins) were affected by the same disease. The etiology of "idiopathic" urinary calculi in cases in which no metabolic defect is found was never clearly established. This study suggests that hereditary factors have great importance in a population with a high incidence of this disease.