Therapy modifies cystine kidney stones at the macroscopic scale. Do such alterations exist at the mesoscopic and nanometre scale?

With an incidence of 1:7000 births, cystinuria is the most frequent genetic disease inducing nephrolithiasis. It is shown that alkalinization with sodium bicarbonate affects cystine kidney stones at the mesoscopic and nanoscopic scales, while other medical treatments only alter their surface, a result which may help to assess the interaction between drugs and cystine stones in cystinuric patients.