Since Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) has become one of the most
life-threatening disease all over the world, a lot of people begin to care this
disease. And many people want to know how does this disease endanger the health
of people? Only by knowing this can we find out the effective treatment to treat
this disease.
As we all know, all the hazards of PKD are caused by the cysts of the kidneys
and the enlargement of cysts. Then how does these cysts form and how do these
cysts grow up?
Cyst formation begins in utero from any point along the nephron, although
fewer than 5% of nephrons are thought to be involved. This is because that PKD
is a type of genetic disease. At the beginning of pregnancy, the baby has 50
percent of chance to carry the cyst-gene if either his parent has PKD, which
means that the baby has cysts in his kidneys at the beginning of his life. But
at this time the cysts are rather small and they won't affect the health of the
baby. As the cysts accumulate fluid, they enlarge, separate entirely from the
nephron, compress the neighboring renal parenchyma, and progressively compromise
renal function. This is the reason why we say that PKD is a kind of late-onset
disorder characterized by progressive cyst development and bilaterally enlarged
kidneys with multiple cysts.
Then why the cysts can enlarge with the increase of age? The most basic unit
of our human body is cell. And our kidneys consist of five types of cells. They
are glomerulus capillary endothelial cells, glomerulus capillary epithelial
cells, glomerulus mesangial cells, renal tubules epithelial cells, and renal
mesenchyma fibroblast cells.
As for the enlargement of cysts, the abnormal hyperplasia of kidney tubules
epithelial cells is its outstanding feature. When the kidney tubules epithelial
cells turn into cysts epithelial cells, they begin to have the function of
secretion. The liquid they secreted become more and more but there is no normal
approach to eliminate. So with the increase of age and the accumulation of
liquid, the cysts will gradually enlarge and the cysts pressure will increase,
then the cysts will press the surrounding renal tissues and the tension of cysts
wall will increase.
Then there is another question: what will cause "the abnormal hyperplasia of
kidney tubules epithelial cells". Except the gene factor, there is another
cause: the conditions of ischemia and anoxia of the cells, which is caused by
the external factors, such as having a cold, infections, injuries, hypertension,
pregnancy, over working, toxin, and emotion and etc.
Now we can know the causes and the process of the enlargement of the cysts.
Then on the basis of this, we can adopt more effective therapy to treat the
disease of PKD.
What is the effective therapy? The effective therapy should aim at
controlling the secretion of cysts fluid and the "the abnormal hyperplasia of
kidney tubules epithelial cells", thus achieve the goal of contracting the
cysts, controlling the enlargement of cysts and preventing the damage to renal
function.