Kidney Stone Disease and the Polymorphisms of the CALCR TPH and TRPVS genes

Kidney stone is a very common and ancient disease. Evidence of kidney stone has been found in Egyptian mummies of 4000-5000 B.C. Stone treatment reports were there in ancient Egyptian medical writings from 1500 B.C. Symptoms and treatment procedure to dissolve the stone was reported in the Mesopotamian medical text Asutu between 3200-1200 B.C. Lithotomy with only perineal incision was also practiced by ancient Greeks, however, the Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates stated about lethality of the wounds of peritoneal lithotomy in case of bladder stone and he also described about kidney disease.
In 1824, French urologist Jean Civiale invented lithotrite, the first known minimally invasive surgery to crush bladder stone without opening the abdomen. In 1874, a stronger and harder lithotrite was developed by Bigelow and it was introduced into the bladder with the help of anaesthesia and then the stones were crushed followed by evacuation of stone fragments. This process was termed as "litholopaxy" and this technique reduced the mortality rate from 25% to 2.4%. Simultaneously alternative surgical procedures like nephrotomy (surgical incision in kidney) and pyelotomy (surgical incision into renal pelvis of kidney) were being attempted for stone removal.

In recent years, there have been a great advancement in endourology techniques [extrashockwave lithotripsy (ESWL), ureteroscopy, laser lithotripsy, percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL)] and there is an ongoing search for even less invasive treatments.