Is it serious to have kidney cysts?

The kidneys are an important part of our body, and we must protect them in our daily lives. Although the kidneys will age as we age, especially in life, many people have irregular diets and schedules, which often cause certain damage to the kidneys. Kidney cysts are a relatively common kidney disease. The diseased kidney can be unilateral or bilateral. When the kidneys are affected by this disease, it will have some impact on the patient's physical health.

Symptoms of kidney cysts

Simple renal cysts generally have no symptoms, but corresponding symptoms may occur when the cyst compression causes vascular occlusion or urinary tract obstruction. This disease is often discovered during urinary tract imaging examinations due to other diseases. In recent years, more and more health examinations have included abdominal B-type ultrasound examinations, and the detection rate of simple renal cysts has increased.

It was originally believed that simple cysts did not affect renal function. However, image analysis of renal CT examinations showed that after correction for age, gender, primary kidney disease, etc., patients with renal cysts had higher blood creatinine levels than those without renal cysts, and the more cysts there were, the higher the blood creatinine level. This result suggests that simple renal cysts may affect renal function.

Simple renal cyst is not a congenital or hereditary kidney disease, but an acquired one. It is generally believed that simple renal cysts originate from renal tubular diverticula. As age increases, the number of renal tubular diverticula increases. By the age of 90, the number of diverticula in each collecting duct may reach three, thus explaining the increasing trend of the incidence of simple renal cysts with age. The cysts may be unilateral or bilateral and may be one or more. It is usually located in the deep layer of the cortex or medulla, with a diameter of about 2 cm, but there are also cysts with a diameter of up to 10 cm. Microscopically, the cyst wall is covered by a simple layer of squamous epithelium. The cyst contents are similar to plasma filtrate, and the cyst fluid turnover rate is as high as 20 times a day.

Treatment

Since simple renal cysts are mostly asymptomatic and have little effect on renal function and surrounding tissues, they do not require treatment and only require follow-up for 6 months to 1 year. If the cyst is large in diameter, exceeding 5 cm, or produces symptoms of compression of surrounding tissues, causing urinary tract obstruction, cyst fluid aspiration and intracystic injection of sclerosing agent are required. If the cyst is large, with a diameter greater than 10 cm, surgery may be required.