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What Does Renal Atrophy Mean

2012-12-14 15:41

Renal atrophy is a term of pathological anatomy in which the kidney is smaller than the normal size by taking into accounts the patients’ age, gender, and height and body weight. Measuring of kidney size is of great clinical significances for indicating renal lesions, analyzing illness conditions, predicting prognosis and assessing the curative effects.

In case of atrophic kidney, patients will have a series of symptoms and discomforts including nausea, vomiting, fatigue, anemia, swelling in eyes and legs, itching skin and severe back pain. Blood pressure will increase as renal atrophy becomes worse and patients will also lose weight. Some patients can even have hematuria.

Though these symptoms may not be caused by renal atrophy, immediate medical consultation and related tests are recommended once the above mentioned symptoms and signs appear. B ultrasound is a simple and harmless test for an early detection of atrophic kidneys. The normal size of kidney is as follows:

Left kidney: length is 8.1-11cm, width is 5.5-7cm and height is 4-5cm

Right kidney: length is 7.9-10.5cm, width is 5.5-7cm and height is 4-5cm.

When there is renal atrophy, the renal glomeruli and renal tubules will be damaged and the kidney functions will be affected. Patients will begin to have renal dysfunction and renal failure. Therefore it is very crucial to control and improve the atrophic kidneys.

There are many causes of renal atrophy such as renal parenchymal diseases, renal vessels diseases or physical traumas. In simple word, the root reason of renal atrophy is continuous renal fibrosis. Therefore effective treatments should focus on reversing renal fibrosis and recovering certain kidney functions. If renal atrophy only involves one kidney, nephrectomy can be done to remove the diseased kidney and protect the other healthy kidney. High serum creatinine can be lowered through dialysis and proper diets. Besides, patients should avoid over-tiredness, have adequate good rest and get rid of alcohol and tobacco.


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