[Usefulness of urinary electrolyte determination].

As a practical contribution to an understanding of the usefulness of measuring some electrolytes in urine, the author first recalls that elements measured in a 24-h urine sample provide nutritional informations, whereas those assayed in fasting morning urine generate data on renal tubular function. To illustrate the first point the author describes assessment of the etiology of hypercalciuria based on a knowledge of concomitant 24-h excretions of sodium, phosphate, urate and creatinine. On the second point, the author suggests dissociating the parameters of which only the urinary concentration is of interest (pH, lysozyme, gamma-glutamyl-transferase) from the parameters of which the excretion--either fractional (Na, K, Cl, P, Mg) or absolute (Ca)--should be calculated. Finally, the reader is reminded how to use the nomogram of Peacock, Robertson and Nordin to evaluate fasting urinary excretion of calcium, and how to use the nomogram of Walton and Bijvoet to estimate the renal threshold phosphate concentration.