Renal stones is considered one of the most painful urologic disorders. Most renal stones pass out of the body without any intervention by a physician. Stones that cause lasting symptoms or other complications may be treated with multiple different methods of intervention. So what is needed is preoperative knowledge of stone composition while the stone is still in situ.

Non contract computerized tomography (NCCT) is currently the preferred method for investigating suspected renal colic, and may be used to identify stone composition. It helps in the preoperative prediction of urinary stone composition. Stone composition influences the choice of treatment modality, follow up schedule and preventive measures against recurrence. NCCT not only provides information regarding urinary tract abnormalities but also aids in determining the stone location, size, shape, density, and skin to surface distance, and the overall health of the kidney.

 So we conducted this study in the department of diagnostic radiology, Assiut University Hospitals between October 2019 and March 2022 aiming to predict the composition of the urinary stones  

The study enrolled seventy three patients  known urolithiasis (49 male and 24 female), the main complaint was loin pain and hematuria.

We found that different stones types based on chemical analysis had insignificant differences as regard size but density of stone was significantly higher among calcium stones and oxalate with apatite in comparison to uric acid stones and calcium oxalate stones.

          As regard site of the stones, different stones types had insignificant differences as regard sites.

In conclusion we found that computed tomography is valuable tool in evaluation the composition of urological stones. The Hounsfield density is a convenient radiographic method that correlates well with the chemical composition of all stone types with high specificity and accuracy.

So we recommend multiple future studies on large number of patients in multiple centers to confirm this study.

Hepcidin peptide hormone is a main controller of iron homeostasis, it becomes elevated in case of iron overload, however despite iron overload in b-Thalassemia major (b-TM) patients a contradictory decrease in Hepcidin occurs. The incompatible Hepcidin level is the main responsible factor causing the iron overload status in iron-loading anemias such as (b-TM) which contributes to organ dysfunction and to iron toxicity.

Aim of Study

To evaluate the conflicting effect of increased erythropoiesis in contrast to the effect of iron overloading on Hepcidin serum level and its correlation with iron status in (b-TM) patients.

Subjects and Methods

For all patients and controls Complete Blood Count (CBC), serum assays of Hepcidin, iron, ferritin, transferrin, HCV Abs, HBs Ag, CRP and serum level were performed.

Results

Hepcidin level was significantly lowered in (b-TM) patients compared to controls with high significant difference (p=0.00). There was no correlation between serum Hepcidin and ferritin level, neither was between Hepcidin and serum iron, transferrin, Hb level and reticulocyte count in the study group. Hepcidin/Ferritin ratio showed high significance difference (p<0.000) with mean value in the study group 0.056 vs. 4.75 in controls pointing to an incom-patible levels of Hepcidin to iron overload status. Hepcidin level was negative correlated with age (p<0.05).

Conclusion

Hepcidin was markedly decreased in the study group with no significant correlation between serum Hepcidin and ferritin level as a marker of iron overload in thalassemia major. Hepcidin deficiency is the main contributing factor of iron overload in b  thalassemia …