Early Diagnosis For Polycystic Kidney Disease

We all know that polycystic kidney disease is a congenital and hereditary renal disease and it has the feature of familial aggregation, therefore some patients know that they have the disease even though they have no symptoms at all because they have family members having the disease and they have themselves checked and found that they also have the disease.

An early diagnosis is very important for PKD patients and it can help improve the prognosis and prolong patients’ life expectancy. Since the progression of PKD is very slow, it can not be detected with routine urine test and blood test in the early stage, the following are some suggested test for an early and accurate diagnosis of PKD.

Diagnosis of polycystic kidney disease before the baby is born

Though PKD has high hereditary risk, not all the babies will inherit it, therefore many PKD parents concern weather they can give birth to a healthy baby or not and what is the chance. Prenatal gene diagnosis can help know weather the children inherit the abnormal gene and weather the baby will have the disease before he or she is born.

Diagnosis for adult polycystic kidney disease

It is very common that many adult PKD patients get to know that they have the disease by accident in physical examination or in ultrasound done for other conditions. This is because in the early stage patients have no obvious symptoms or discomforts. There are also many patients who do not know they have the disease until they develop obvious symptoms such as palpable abdominal masses, back pain, high blood pressure, bubbles in urine, blood in urine, frequent urinary tract infections.

Regular physical examination is very important and necessary for early diagnosing adult PKD. If physical examination is not available, it is recommended that those that have PKD patients in their families to do the following renal imaging tests to have an early diagnosis.

·Ultrasound examination

·CT scan (computerized tomography)

·MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

Diagnosis for children polycystic kidney disease

It is much rarer in clinic compared with adult PKD and some patients will develop symptoms months or even hours within birth.

Tests for children PKD are the same as those for adult PKD---ultrasound, CT, MRI, only that the renal cysts in the children’ kidneys are very small in size. Their kidneys are enlarged with abnormal appearance. And since children PKD usually scars the liver, therefore imaging tests of the liver also help.