Factors That Affect PKD Prognosis

It is known that PKD (polycystic kidney disease) will develop into renal failure. Usually it takes many years, however in some cases the illness can have rapid progression. About 50% PKD patients will enter into end stage renal disease when they are 57-73 years old.

There are a variety of factors that can affect the prognosis and progression of PKD including genotype, gender, age, attack time, high blood pressure, hematuria (blood in urine), proteinuria (protein in urine), urinary tract infection, the size of the kidneys and renal cysts, pregnancy, steroids and other treatments. For example, if the patient has PKD 1 gene mutation, male, has the first onset of hematuria before 30 years old and develop high blood pressure before 35, he is very likely to develop renal failure early than others.

High blood pressure

Controlling high blood pressure can much slow down the progression of PKD and improve PKD prognosis. If patient has developed high blood pressure, he should adopt a low-salt diet (2-4g/d), control body weight, have proper and regular exercises. If these self-care measures can not help, hypotensive drugs will be needed.

Proteinuria

In the early stage, there can be small amount of proteinuria because it is the renal tubules that are first damaged. In the latter stage, protein in urine will increase and become worse. Proteinuria will in turn aggravate renal damages. It has been found in clinic that the prognosis will be greatly improved if proteinuria is effectively reduced.

Cardiovascular complications

The most common causes of death for PKD patients are cardiovascular complications, followed by infections. Therefore it is very important to have early and effective prevention and treatment.

Though some factors can not be changed such as the mutated gene type, age, gender, many other factors can be changed, therefore there is still great chance to improve the prognosis of PKD such as clinical symptoms and treatments.

There is at present no complete cure for PKD, but there are still a lot of things that can be done to help ease discomforts, improve life quality, prognosis and life expectancy.