Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) is mainly caused by abnormal gene and some
patients’ disease also can be caused by genetic mutation but this case is rare.
PKD can run in the family and both girl and boy have 50% chance of getting the
disease. PKD can be inherited to children by two ways.
(1) Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD): patients with this
kind of PKD usually do not have any symptoms until their adulthood.
(2) Autosoma Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease (ARPKD): patients with this
kind of PKD often have obvious symptoms when they are still babies.
Clinically, ADPKD is more common and nearly covers 5~10% patients with End
Stage Renal Failure. Its clinical symptoms mainly consist of enlarged kidney,
back pain, hematuria, proteinuria and hypertension. At terminal stage, the
patients can often develop into Renal Failure. Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)
mainly includs the following symptoms.
(1) Enlarged kidney
In the early time, the cysts are small so patients do not have abnormal
symptoms. However, as the patients grow older, the number and size of cyst will
increase and enlarge. After the disease develops into terminal stage, both of
patients’ kidneys can be covered with cysts.
(2) Back pain
Most patients often feel painful in their renal area. They often have a dull
pain and even a violent pain in their back. The pain can be aggravated by
physical activities, walking too long and so on. Moreover, bleeding in kidney
and kidney stone or infection often causes of violent pains.
(3) Hematuria
About half of patients with PKD have microscopic hematuria and sometimes they
can be companied with gross hematuria. This is caused by the angiorrhoxis on the
cyst wall.
(4) Renal function insufficiency
For all patients with PKD, if they can not receive effective treatment, their
diseases will develop into renal function insufficiency. In some cases, some
patients may have renal function insufficiency during their teenager time.
However, most of patients begin to have renal function insufficiency after 40
years old and some patients even do not have symptoms when they are older than
70 years old. However, hypertension can shorten the time that the disease
develops into renal function insufficiency.
The above article gives a brief introduction of PKD. If you want to know more
about PKD and their therapy, you can consult us on line or email us.
