Editorial comment

摘要

Despite the significant innovation in the treatment of urolith-iasis, with technologies such as endoscopic instrumentation, novel methods of lithotripsy, and the constant introduction of new devices, relatively little has changed in the fundamental understanding and assessment of stones. The authors have more critically examined the appearance of stones on noncontrast computed tomography to help characterize uric acid and calcium oxalate stones, which have Hounsfield units in the 400-800 range. By evaluating bone windows, they observed that there was less variation in core to periphery HU measurement in uric acid vs calcium oxalate stones and that stone size was associated with HU values in calcium oxalate stones. The use of these findings requires further study — to determine the feasibility of automated acquisition of the data and whether low-dose computed tomography yields the same information, but moreover to assess whether it affects subsequent clinical decision making.