Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) is a common genetic disease. It can not be
cured completely. PKD has a latent characteristic. Most of patients do not have
symptoms such as hypertension, hematuria, proteinuria, back pain and so on until
their adulthood. In most cases, it is found accidentally by patients when they
do physical examination or take test for other disease. If the patients can not
prevent the disease development, all PKD will do much harm to them and all PKD
will develop into End Stage Renal Failure at last. So, what harm dose PKD bring
to patients?
As patients grow older, the number and size of the cysts will enlarge and
increase respectively. The enlarged cysts will cause oppression to the renal
parenchyma and damaging the normal renal function. At last, the cysts will be
full of the whole kidney. As a result, the patients’ kidney will enlarge
obviously.
As PKD is a genetic disease, it not only can damage kidney, but also can
affect other organs. Many patients can find cysts in other organs such as liver,
pancreas. What’s worse, according to some researches, many patients with PKD
have cerebral aneurysm that is the main cause of patients with End Stage Renal
Failure. Therefore, PKD is not just a kidney disease, but it is a generalized
disease.
At present, there is no effective treatment for PKD in the western medicine.
Many patients just receive operation to remove the big cysts. However, after the
big ones are removed, the small ones will become big very soon. At that time,
the patients have to have another operation. The frequent operations bring much
harm to patients’ body and mind. However, this therapy can not stop the kidney
function from declining. Finally, they will have to depend on dialysis and
kidney transplant to prolong their life.
Therefore, the patients with PKD should pay more attention to the disease and
receive treatment as early as possible.
