What are the Causes of Atrophic Kidneys

Kidney atrophy is a kidney disorder wherein the kidneys are relatively or obviously shrinked in size in comparison to the gender, age and body weight of the patient. Long-term kidney disease reduces the number of healthy renal cells and diminishes the size of kidneys. Thereby, atrophying of the kidneys is closely associated to deterioration of renal functions, and presence of atrophic may suggest that the patients have developed renal insufficiency or even kidney failure. Early detection and timely treatment to control or improve the atrophic kidneys is very important so as to prevent further deterioration of kidney damage.

Usually, in chronic kidney failure patients, B-ultrasound treatment will find out whether a patient has kidney atrophy. Normal size of the kidneys is 8.1-11cm in length, 5.5-7 cm in width and 4-5cm in thickness. A normal or slightly decreased kidney size indicates early to middle phage of the disease and a better prognosis by effective treatment. An obviously decreased kidney size is associated to poor prognosis in the patients. Usually, kidney atrophy can be divided into two types, unilateral kidney atrophy and bilateral kidney atrophy. And atrophic kidneys may be caused by the following conditions.

For a patient with atrophic kidney, firstly it will be considered whether an inborn disorder such as renal arterial narrowing or congenital renal dysplasia has caused the condition. An unilateral atrophic kidney is often detected when one seeks for examinations due to high blood pressure and waist soreness. Except for symptoms of the primary condition, the patients don’t pose obvious blood in urine and proteinuria. However, renal condition can get deteriorated induced by over fatigues, infections, Nephrotoxic medicines or other factors. If not treated properly, the unilateral kidney atrophy may progress into bilateral kidney atrophy.

Bilateral kidney atrophy is often caused by end-stage renal disease, or kidney failure, and this can be caused by Diabetic nephropathy, chronic glomerulonephritis, Alport Syndrome, hypertensive kidney disease, renal repulsion rejection, etc. In renal failure stage, the kidneys are so severely impaired that a significant part of functioning renal intrinsic cells are severely impaired, thus reducing kidney size and posing clinical symptoms such as elevated creatinine, vomiting, nausea, reduced urine output, etc.

People need to attach importance to timely treatment when atrophic kidneys are detected. Kidney disease is a latent disease, so when renal damage is in initial or early stage the patients don’t have obvious symptoms. Clinical symptoms show up when glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is decreased obviously. Extent of renal atrophy is tightly linked to the deterioration of kidney function. Do full physical tests timely and treat kidney atrophy in time so as not to delay opportunity or worsen the illness condition.