Kidney Stone Shock Wave Treatment Boosts Diabetes, Hypertension Risk

Study suggests link, but doctors say it's too early to abandon this therapy

By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors are reacting cautiously to a report linking a popular shock wave therapy that breaks up kidney stones to an increased risk of diabetes and hypertension.

Mayo Clinic researchers report in the April issue of the Journal of Urology that patients who undergo the procedure, called lithotripsy, are nearly four times more likely to develop diabetes and face a nearly 50 percent higher risk of high blood pressure over the following decades than those getting alternative treatment.

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However, that has not changed the use of lithotripsy at the Mayo Clinic, said study author Dr. Amy Krambeck, a urology resident.

"We continue to use lithotripsy," Krambeck said. She said it has a "definite role" in helping patients get rid of the painful stones.

The study is far from definitive, Krambeck pointed out. "If we could say for certain we found an exact cause, it would be different."

Dr. Philip Mosca, an Oklahoma City physician who is also president of the Urology Society of America, echoed those sentiments. He noted that the Mayo Clinic study was "retrospective," meaning that it looked at historical results rather than being a prospective, controlled trial. "Retrospective studies are always suspect," he said.

According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, 10 percent of men and 5 percent of women can expect to develop a kidney stone before the age of 70, and Mayo Clinic experts say that about 1 million Americans have undergone lithotripsy so far.

In the study, the first to look at long-term effects of lithotripsy, the Mayo team sent questionnaires to 630 people who got the shock wave treatment at the clinic in 1985. Their outcomes were compared to a matched set of patients who received an alternate therapy to deal with their kidney stones.

The researchers found an increased incidence of diabetes and high blood pressure in the 60 percent of lithotripsy patients who responded to the questionnaire.

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