 I am Dr. Madhav Sansgiri, consultant urologist at Manipal Hospital Goa. Today I will be talking to you about kidney stones which is one of the commonest problems tackled by urologists in our country today. Kidney is an organ which is very important for the function of the human body. It is shaped like this. This is just a model to explain to you how the kidney is. Kidney is an organ which is placed in the body on the flank on each side and it performs the action of filtration of all the impurities from the blood and all these impurities are passed out in the urine through the urinary passage. The main symptoms of kidney stones are pain, blood in the urine, urinary blockage and in very severe cases renal failure. The patients present in an emergency with severe pain due to blockage of the urinary passage by the stone. The blood in the urine occurs because the rough stone causes injury to the lining of the passages and hence there is blood in the urine. Once the patient comes with pain, usually the first line of treatment is to give the patient adequate painkillers and then we do some investigations. The investigations which are done are a urine test, a urine analysis to see if there is any infection, any blood in the urine or any crystals suggestive of what type of stone formation it is. Blood tests include serum creatinine which is an indicator of the kidney function. The most important investigation for diagnosis of kidney stones is an ultrasonography or a CT scan. This is an imaging modality which will give us a clear idea of retrograde intra-renal surgery. Accordingly the patients are put on specific medical treatment if any of these tests come positive. Also the patient has to be advised to drink plenty of water which is about 10 to 12 glasses or about 2 to 2.5 litres per day. The intake has to be increased during the summer and more hot months and there is excessive sweating and more loss of fluid from the body. Dietary restrictions are also very important. Some foodstuffs like shellfish, prawns, red meat should be restricted from the diet as well. Along with this dietary restrictions, fluid intake and medical treatment, patients should be also subject to regular follow-up and check-ups if they are forming stones recurrently. Then usually 3 to 6 monthly imaging modality like an ultrasonography should be done to see if the patient is forming stones again. I work in this department at Manipal Hospital. We are a fully fledged and extremely well-equipped department. We have the entire range of flexible endoscopes, dedicated OT with an image intensifier, an excellent holmium laser. We have the finest equipment for keyhole and laparoscopic surgery and all kinds of stones are treated here in our department. In addition to kidney stones, we are also a centre of excellence for treatment of all kinds of urinary malignancies, cancers of the kidney, prostate, bladder, testes, etc. And we conduct a large number of procedures on a very regular basis here in our department.