'THE ROLE OF HARDNESS OF POTABLE WATER IN THE FORMATION OF URINARY CALCULI IN UROMIEH, Iran'

The formation of renal and urinary calculi is not due to a single cause but occurs as a multifactor entity, by which some of them still are unknown. Three theories of Stones formation including nucleation, stone matrix and inhibition of crystallization do not accuse water hardness as a main cause of the formation of urinary calculi 120 patients suffering from renal and urinary calculi and the same number of control persons were studied in the city of Uromieh. The analysis of uroliths and water samples fulfilled the laboratory Standard methods Chi-square test was done on the results obtained The results of water analyses showed that the total hardness of Calcium and Magnesium were 300, 69, 32 mg/I as CaCo3 , TDS , 410 mg/I, electrical conductivity 600 us/cm and water classified as very hard. The abundance of uroliths were, oxalate, cystjne, uric acid infectious respectively, There was no statistical significant association between water hardness and urinary calculi of patients under study with respect to age and sex. The abundance blood groups in patients were A , 0 , AB and B respectively and the occurrence of 3 renal calculi mentioned above were more in men than Women The formation of renal stones were most occurred in summer season. The most abundant was calcium oxalate, the incidence was between the ages 30 to 50 years old and calcium stones were 2.7 times more in men than woman.