Treatment Options for Parapelvic Cysts

Parapelvic cyst is a kind of benign kidney lesion and it belongs to simple kidney cyst. Most kidney cysts are located at the renal cortical areas, being round and it can be single or multiple. Parapelvic cyst is located inside the renal sinus and large ones can protrude into renal hilum.

Parapelvic cyst is more common among those that are above 50 and the male has more chance of developing clinical symptoms than the female. Usually when the cyst is small in size, there is no obvious symptom. However the cyst will experience continuous growth and oppress healthy renal cells and tissues if left untreated. When the cyst is larger than 5cm and there are oppression symptoms, proper treatments should be received.

Here are three treatment options for parapelvic cysts.

1. Aspiration and sclerosis. In this therapy, the doctor will insert a fine needle into the body under the guidance of ultrasound to drain the cystic fluid outside and then alcohol will be injected to harden the cyst wall.

2. Laparoscopic decortication. The doctor will insert a thin, lighted viewing tube (laparoscopic) and other instruments through small incisions in the abdomen. The fluid will be drained, the cyst be removed and the affected tissues be hardened or burned. It is a kind of minimally invasive surgery and it has the advantages of fewer injuries, shorter hospitalization time and quicker recovery.

3. Herbal medicines. Compared with the above 2 therapies, herbal medicines are no surgery and it is a conservative treatments. Both surgery and herbal medicines have their advantages and disadvantages. Surgery has quick effects, but they will cause certain damages to the body even the laparoscopic decortication. And the recurrent rate is high and usually after a period of time the cyst will return and refill with fluid. The last but not least is that surgery can not be applied to all the parapelvic cysts. It is suitable for single and large cyst and has no use for small cyst. Therefore patients have to wait until the cyst grow large enough and this will miss the best period for treatments and kidney damages will be already caused. Herbal medicines take relatively longer time to take effects but the recurrent is much lowered compared with surgeries. What is more important, it has effects on both large and small cysts and can control the illness even when the cyst is still very small.