Yale University researcher Craig Crews has said: "If we were able to slow the
rate of cyst formation by even 10 percent a year, compounded annually, patients
would not die from Polycystic Kidney Disease. A relatively small effect would
have an enormous clinical benefit.”
Triptolide is derived from a Chinese medicinal herb, named Lei Gong Teng,
which has been used in traditional medicine to treat cancer, inflammation, and
auto-immune diseases and, more recently, also has been tested in Phase I
clinical trials as an anti-tumor agent.
In terms of normal kidney development, cells lining the kidney tubules
continue enlarging and dividing until they receive a signal that tubule is fully
formed. The switch that turns on that signal consists of the growth regulatory
proteins PKD1 and PKD2, located on hair-like cilia in the lining of the
developing tubules. When urine begins flowing through the tubules, the flow
bends the cilia that sets off the signal that no more growth is needed.
In people who have a mutation in one of these growth regulatory proteins,
however, the message to stop growing never gets delivered, even when urine is
flowing and the cilia are bending.
It is as if the phone is ringing but the cell can't hear it. So, never
sensing a signal to stop, the cells lining the fully-formed kidney tubules keep
right on subdividing and growing. The result of this hyperproliferative,
unregulated growth: uncontrolled growth of cells lining the tubules and the
formation of large cysts in the kidneys.
According to a study, people with PKD who are used triptolide with a less
toxic concentration than that used in cancer chemotherapy trials. At that level,
the compound marked reduced cyst formation in the people compared to genetically
similar people not taking the compound.
Apart from trptolede, there are also many other herbs which are found can
take effects in restricting the growth of cysts. If patients can take them
rightly, they are expected not to die from Polycystic Kidney Disease.
