Does Vitamin a Deficiency Exist in Clinical Urolithiasis?

Although experimental¹and clinical investigations²have suggested a relationship between vitamin A deficiency and urolithiasis, our observations based on a study of 98 cases have failed to disclose any evidence of such a relationship in the human being. There can be no doubt that a vitamin A free diet may result in a high incidence of urinary calculi in rats, but a certain skepticism with regard to an actual clinical relationship recently has arisen. This skepticism has resulted from (1) the disagreement among different investigators with regard to the reliability of some of the tests of the light sense and the adequacy of the norms which have been used in diagnosing moderate degrees of vitamin A deficiency,³(2) the lack of improvement in the light sense following administration of vitamin A to certain patients with urinary calculi⁴and (3) the extensiveness of the pathologic changes associated