Can Polycystic Kidney Disease Be Cured by Surgery

Treatments for polycystic kidney disease mainly focus on controlling discomforts and complications including back pain, cyst bleeding, high blood pressure and frequent urinary tract infections and slowing down illness progression into end stage renal failure.

If these complications and symptoms can not be well controlled, surgery might be considered such as renal decortication, renal artery embolization, nephrectomy and kidney transplant for end stage PKD. Whatever the surgery is, it has certain risk therefore most patients concern about the curative effects of surgery so that they can see weather the surgery worth the risk.

Here are the introductions of some surgeries for PKD and their advantages and disadvantages.

1. Aspiration. This is to use a fine needle to insert into the cyst under the guidance of B ultrasound and drain the fluid out of the fluid and then alcohol will be injected to harden the affected tissues.

2. Decortication. It is to cut the root of the cyst and remove the cyst wall so that the cyst will be removed.

3. Laparoscopic decortication. Compared with traditional open surgery, laparoscopic decortication has the advantages of small incision, few pain and quick recovery.

The above mentioned surgeries can remove the cysts within short time and achieve quick and obvious effects, but they are more suitable to treat simple and single cysts that are larger than 3cm, what is more, the cysts can not be cured from the root and the recurrent rate is relatively high.

4. Nephrectomy. As its name indicates, nephrectomy is to cut the affected renal tissues so as to protect the normal renal tissues. However it is not suitable for PKD because in most cases bilateral kidneys are affected and both kidneys are filled with numerous cysts.

5. Kidney transplant. When PKD develops into end stage, most renal tissues have been altered and most kidney functions have been lost, dialysis and kidney transplant might be needed to sustain the patients' life activities. One of the main complication after kidney transplant is infections especially urinary tract infections, therefore patients should have careful home nursing and close monitoring of their kidney functions.