Background: Kidney stone disease (KSD) is a common illness that causes an economic burden globally. It is easy for patients to relapse once they have suffered from this disease. The reported recurrence rate of KSD ranged from 6.1% to 66.9%. We performed this meta-analysis to identify various potential risk factors for the recurrence of KSD. Methods: The PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases were searched using suitable keywords from inception to Mar 2022. A total of 2,663 records were collected initially. After screening the literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 53 articles (40 retrospective studies; 13 prospective studies) including 488,130 patients were enrolled. The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO (No. CRD42020171771). Results: The pooled results indicated that 12 risk factors including younger age (n = 18), higher BMI (n = 16), family history of kidney stones (n = 12), personal history of kidney stones (n = 11), hypertension (n = 5), uric acid stone (n = 4), race of Caucasian (n = 3), suspected kidney stone episode before the first confirmed stone episode (n = 3), surgery (n = 3), any concurrent asymptomatic (nonobstructing) stone (n = 2), pelvic or lower pole kidney stone (n = 2), and 24 h urine test completion (n = 2) were identified to be associated with KSD recurrence. In the subgroup analysis, patients with higher BMI (OR = 1.062), personal history of nephrolithiasis (OR = 1.402), or surgery (OR = 3.178) had a higher risk of radiographic KSD recurrence. Conclusions: We identified 12 risk factors related to the recurrence of KSD. The results of this analysis could serve to construct recurrence prediction models. It could also supply a basis for preventing the recurrence of KSD.

Background Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is a malignant urogenital cancer with high mortality; however, current progress in understanding its molecular mechanism and predicting clinical treatment outcome is limited. Therefore, this study is to evaluate the clinical significance of immune inhibitory molecular human endogenous retrovirus-H long terminal repeat-associating protein 2 (HHLA2) in ccRCC prognosis and transcriptional regulatory network. Methods Expression of HHLA2 in ccRCC was examined by an online database platform ONCOMINE. The ONCOMINE result was independently validated by qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. Kaplan-Meier survival was generated using IBM SPSS Statistics V.22. ccRCC tissues cells with high HHLA2 were sorted and subjected to microarray transcriptional profiling and analysis. Results It was shown that expression of HHLA2 was statistically significantly increased in ccRCC tissues compared with normal renal tissues at both transcriptional and protein level. Moreover, the expression of HHLA2 was closely correlated with multiple clinicopathological features including tumour size, clinical stage and histological grade. High HHLA2 expression was associated with poor overall survival and clinical outcome. Comprehensive microarray analysis further identified thousands of HHLA2 targets including mRNA, long non-coding RNA and circular RNA that might function in various biological processes, especially, immune response. Conclusion Increased HHLA2 expression was observed in ccRCC tumour tissue, which leads to a remarkable shorter overall survival and poorer prognosis. Together with other molecular evidence, we have demonstrated that HHLA2 could be a potential prognostic biomarker for ccRCC.

Preoperative albumin to globulin ratio predicts survival in clear cell renal cell carcinoma patients

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), the most common histological subtype of kidney cancer, shows poor prognosis, and non-sensitivity to radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The lncRNA small nucleolar RNA host gene 12 (SNHG12) has been revealed to play a carcinogenic role in various neoplasms, but the underlying mechanism in ccRCC is still unclear. To explore the potential role of SNHG12 in ccRCC, the data downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) Data Portal was used to compare the expression of SNHG12 in tumors and adjacent normal tissues. MRNA microarray and quantitative real-time PCR revealed that SNHG12 was overexpressed in the ccRCC tissues and cell lines. Functional inhibition of SNHG12 suppressed the viability and mobility of ccRCC cells. Mechanistically, dual luciferase assay and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay showed that miR-129-5p could bind to SNHG12 directly. There was a negative relationship between SNHG12 and miR-129-5p. What's more, we used bioinformatics-based prediction software to predict the target genes of miR-129-5p. Through data analysis and experimental verification, we found MDM4, a regulatory factor in p53 pathway, was involved in this ceRNA network. Our findings demonstrated that SNHG12 served as a sponge for miR-129-5p to regulate the expression of MDM4 and p53 pathway in the development of ccRCC.