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Objectives To evaluate vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene polymorphisms in Korean patients so as to identify the candidate genes associated with urinary stones. Urinary stones are a multifactorial disease that includes various genetic factors. Methods A normal control group of 535 healthy subjects and 278 patients with urinary stones was evaluated. Of 125 patients who presented stone samples, 102 had calcium stones on chemical analysis. The VDR gene Alw I , Fok I , Apa I , and Taq I polymorphisms were evaluated using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Allelic and genotypic frequencies were calculated to identify associations in both groups. The haplotype frequencies of the VDR gene polymorphisms for multiple loci were also determined. Results For the VDR gene Alw I , Fok I , Apa I , and Taq I polymorphisms, there was no statistically significant difference between the patients with urinary stones and the healthy controls. There was also no statistically significant difference between the patients with calcium stones and the healthy controls. A novel haplotype (Ht 4; CTTT) was identified in 13.5% of the patients with urinary stones and in 8.3% of the controls ( P = .001). The haplotype frequencies were significantly different between the patients with calcium stones and the controls ( P = .004). Conclusions The VDR gene Alw I , Fok I , Apa I , and Taq I polymorphisms does not seem to be candidate genetic markers for urinary stones in Korean patients. However, 1 novel haplotype of the VDR gene polymorphisms for multiple loci might be a candidate genetic marker.

To assess the oncologic efficacy of laparoscopic radical nephrectomy (LRN) compared with open radical nephrectomy (ORN) in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC).We analyzed the data from 2561 patients who had undergone radical nephrectomy for RCC at 26 institutions in Korea from June 1998 to December 2007. The clinical data of 631 patients with clear cell RCC in the LRN group were compared with the clinical data of 924 patients in the ORN group. The patients with Stage pT3 or greater and those with lymph node or distant metastases were excluded to avoid a selection bias. To evaluate the technical adequacy and oncologic outcome, we compared the perioperative parameters and 5-year overall and disease-free survival rates.The operative time was significantly longer in the LRN group than in the ORN group (219 ± 77 vs 182 ± 62 minutes, P.001), but the estimated blood loss and complication rate were significantly lower in the LRN group than in the ORN group (P.001 and P.001, respectively). On univariate analysis, the LRN group had 5-year overall (93.5% vs 89.8%, P = .120) and recurrence-free (94.0% vs 92.8%, P = .082) survival rates equivalent to those of the ORN group. Even after adjusting for age, sex, T stage, tumor grade, and body mass index in a Cox proportional hazards model, statistically significant differences between the 2 groups were not found for the 5-year overall (hazard ratio 1.523, P = .157) and recurrence-free (hazard ratio 0.917, P = .773) survival rates.Our large multi-institutional data have shown that LRN provides survival outcomes equivalent to those of ORN in patients with Stage pT1-T2 clear cell RCC.