Pediatric urolithiasis in Morocco: Composition of 432 urinary calculi analyzed by infrared spectroscopy

Incidence of pediatric urolithiasis is decreasing in most developing countries where endemic bladder stones are less prevalent than in the past years. In parallel, stone composition has changed. Only few data are available in North Africa, except for Tunisia. We report stone composition in the Moroccan pediatric population. Composition of 432 stones from children (302 boys, 130 girls) was determined by infrared spectroscopy. The samples were collected during the period 1999–2016. Stone morphology, which is an important aspect for etiology was determined by examination of each stone under a stereomicroscope. Stone composition was compared to patients’ age and gender. The global male-to-female ratio was 2.32. Regarding stone composition, calcium oxalate was the main component in 51.6% of the stones, followed by struvite (18.1%), ammonium urate (9.5%) and carbapatite (9%). Significant differences were found between males and females: calcium oxalate accounted for 72.3% of stones in girls and 42.7% in boys (P