Q: 1. Can a 25 mm stone in the kidney disappear in 24 hours? 2. If an ultrasound is done on a patient in an emergency without proper preparation i.e. empty stomach and bowel clearance, then can fecoliths be mistaken for a stone? 3. Is hydronephrosis a disease and how is it treated? 4. Is extra-renal pelvis a disease?

A:1. The only way a 25 mm kidney stone would disappear (within 24 hours) in the absence of any treatment is if it is passed through urine. Ordinarily, this would not go unnoticed because of the size of the stone and the tremendous amount of pain it would cause when it moves. 2. Occasionally, fecoliths may be misinterpreted as ureteral or bladder stones. However, the location of kidney stones makes it unusual to be misread as fecoliths. 3. Hydronephrosis is definitely an abnormal state resulting from downstream blockage of the urine path causing buildup of large quantities of urine and dilatation of components of kidney. If undetected for prolonged time, it would result in varying degrees of residual kidney damage despite treatment. It certainly can disappear in 24 hours after obstruction has been relieved promptly. 4. Extra-renal pelvis is an anatomical variant (not a disease) in which pelvis (a component of kidneys urine collecting system) which is an integral part of kidney is anatomically located outside the kidney.