Effectiveness of a unani therapy (sangesarmahi) in management of urinary stone disease.

A Unani medicine called fish stones, an isolate from the skull of Channa sp. when given to stone bearing patient daily in 3 equally divided doses (25 mg/capsule) for 5 days, spontaneously voided the stone in 36% of the stone patients during 5 days of therapy. The therapy did not influence the urinary chemistry and was not a powerful expulsion agent of stone but did effect on ureteric muscles to facilitate the movement of stone down the urinary tract. In guinea pigs, the therapy could not reduce the intensity of experimentally induced hyperoxaluria but showed several other beneficial effects. It decreased urinary uric acid and mucoprotein levels, serum LDH and ALT level; prevented rise in liver LDH and GAO activities and kidney-LDH activity. Histological examination revealed decreased intensity of calcification in liver, kidney and bladder tissues.