PKD is a common kidney disease, which is troubling so many patients. What’s
more, many patients are overwhelmed by this disease and want to know how their
life span would be affected.
What is PKD?
PKD is a genetic disease, and the children of patients with PKD, whether it
is boy or girl, get 50 percent chance of getting this disease. If both of the
patients have PKD, the percentage will increase to 75 percent.
In the early stage when the cysts are small, the patients have no symptoms.
With the ongoing enlargement of the cysts, they would press the peripheral
tissues of the cysts, the patients would begin to present symptoms. The starting
symptoms of PKD are high blood pressure, hematuria, abdominal pain, with some
patients being urinary tract infection or kidney stone.
The pathogenesis of PKD
With the stimulus of the genes, massive factors are released into the body
that could cause cysts, leading to abnormal tubular basement membrane. In the
meantime, inflammatory factors are produced ceaselessly, which generates immune
reactions in renal tubules, so that a lot of extracellular matrix is compounded
and the epithelial cell would proliferate, blocking renal tubules. Thus, a cyst
would be formed. With the cysts’ continuous enlargement, they would press the
kidney further, so renal ischemia and anoxia would be caused, initiating renal
fibrosis. Clinically, patients would have abdominal pain and hematuria could
occur.
With the continuous development of the cysts, the kidney’s ischemia and
anoxia would be aggravated. As kidney has powerful compensatory ability, the
symptoms would not appear immediately. But once the symptoms present, the kidney
condition would progress at a high rate and the kidney function would
decline.
Another scenario is that the cysts would continue to enlarge and the walls of
the cysts would become very thin, as a result, the cysts are very likely to
rupture. Once the cysts rupture, the immediate consequences would be vital.
The most likely prognosis
According to statistics, the percentage that PKD patients would have normal
kidney function when they are below 50 years old is 71%, but it declines sharply
to 58% when the patients reach 58 years old and a mere 23% when they reach 70.
Male PKD patients tend to have a worse prognosis than the female patients. The
earlier the PKD start to attack, the worse the prognosis.
Other factors that can influence the prognosis include high blood pressure,
times of gestation, secondary urinary tract infection and its frequency.
If PKD patients want to have a better prognosis, that is, they would live
more years, they should not only start the treatment early, but also find an
effective treatment method.
With effective and sound treatment, the PKD patients’ conditions can be
controlled well, which would not cause life-threatening situations.
