Online Tool for Predicting Kidney Stones by Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic researchers have created a handy tool for the public to use in determining if you’ll have a recurring problem with kidney stones. This online calculator uses a set number of factors about a person’s history and lifestyle to determine if they are any chances of the issue again after experiencing before.

The output of the research work is called the Recurrence Of Kidney Stone (ROKS) model. it was first developed in the year 2014, its capabilities have been expanded  ROKS was only capable of determining the likelihood a second stone occurring after an initial episode. But Now, the ROK tool can predict the odds of the stones being a recurring problem for a person.

The research used data with more than 3000 first-time kidney patients who have been administrated treatment at the Mayo Clinic. A lot of those patients suffered ongoing instances of kidney stones, with one of them ongoing the painful experience eight times. From those cases, the researchers discovered that the risk factors for recurring issues primarily infected people who are young, male gender and of a heavyweight or pregnant.

However, the predictive power of the calculators is a bit limited. As it scored a 0.681 on the C-index, used to determine the accuracy of a model. So, ROKS falls just short. Although, it’s better than nothing.