The Oxford Stone Group

ben.turney@ouh.nhs.uk

Throughout history stones have formed in the urinary tract (kidney and bladder). We are learning more about kidney stone disease and how best to prevent, diagnose and treat this condition.

Fixed site lithotripter (Storz SLX-F2) which is permanently on site to treat stones

The Oxford Stone Group was formed to amalgamate the clinical services of the Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Trust with various research groups within the University of Oxford. The clinical stone service of OUH Trust is based at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, one of 3 hospitals within Oxford that provides services to a population of 750,000 people in the region. Not surprisingly, this affords enormous experience in the management of stone disease.

Our objectives are:

to provide an excellent clinical service for patients with kidney stones.
to undertake high quality research to investigate the causes and prevention of kidney stones.
to research ways of improving treatment for kidney stones

We are actively involved in multidisciplinary research including:

In order to undertake meaningful research into kidney stone disease we have set up a biobank of kidney stone patients. Funded through the Oxford Biomedical Reserch Centre this is an electronic database of clinical information and biochemical data (blood and urine measurements) combined with a collection of blood and urine samples that are processed and stored at -80°C. This resource will be used to investigate the genes, proteins and metabolites that may contribute to stone formation.

Through these and other routes we are learning more about kidney stone disease and how best to prevent, diagnose and treat this condition.