Figure 8: Examples of disease patterns affecting renal function or urinary composition. The resulting urine's crystal formation risk with respect to a particular salt can be specifically and significantly altered compared to that of a healthy subject.

Mentions: A strategic shift from ‘disease care’ (i.e. repeated cost-intensive and side effect beset ‘stone removal only’) to ‘health care’ by individualised recurrence prevention could be achieved by providing adequate diagnostic tools. A point-of-care device like the BRI-on-Chip to measure urolithiasis risk by induced urinary crystal formation might be used for screening (for prophylaxis, e.g. children with a parent suffering from recurrent urolithiasis or chronic renal disease) and as a test for individual adjustment and effective control of metaphylaxis.Induced crystal growth in urine can be a powerful strategy not only in urolithiasis therapy but also for a wide spectrum of diseases affecting metabolism (Figure 8), either to identify chronically altered or changing renal clearance patterns associated with metabolic diseases, or for targeted evaluation of the overall influence of therapeutic measures, including dietary habits (i.e. treatment success). In the following paragraphs, some diseases known to affect renal handling and to augment crystal formation risk are presented, which might benefit from BRI-like analyses of induced urinary crystal formation.