Treatment
Although a cure for PKD is not available, treatment can ease the symptoms and prolong life.
- Pain: Over-the-counter pain medications, such as paracetamol (acetaminophen) can relieve pain. For most but not all cases of severe pain, surgery to shrink cysts can relieve pain in the back and flanks. However, surgery provides only temporary relief and usually does not slow the disease's progression toward kidney failure.
- Urinary tract infections: Patients with PKD tend to have frequent urinary tract infections, which can be treated with antibiotics. Early treatment is important, because infection can spread from the urinary tract to the cysts in the kidneys. Cyst infections are difficult to treat because many antibiotics do not penetrate into the cysts. However, some antibiotics are effective.
- High blood pressure: Keeping blood pressure under control can slow the effects of PKD. Lifestyle changes including low salt diet and various medications especially ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers can lower high blood pressure. Recommended target BP in these patients is 130/80 mm Hg or lower.
- Chronic Kidney Disease Progression: A very exciting new development in ADPKD treatment involves the use of Tolvaptan, a selective vasopressin antagonist, and research shows that this compound may limit cyst growth, reduce symptoms and most importantly, delay the progression of chronic kidney disease.
- End-stage renal disease: There are two options for replacing kidney functions: dialysis or transplantation. Healthy (non-PKD) kidneys transplanted into PKD patients do not develop cysts.
Read more about this topic: Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts.... The question “Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?” should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)