Medical treatment to prevent recurrent calcium urolithiasis. A guide to critical appraisal.

Among patients with urolithiasis, the recurrence rate is 10-23% per year. We have applied guidelines for critical appraisal to 46 publications addressing the efficacy of thiazides, orthophosphates, cellulose phosphate, allopurinol, magnesium and citrate as prophylaxis against recurrent urolithiasis. The 34 studies which do not have a randomly allocated control group are subject to methodologic deficiencies such as co-intervention, variable …