What is Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease?

There are three main types of Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD): Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD), Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease (ARPKD) and Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease (ACKD). The first two belong to hereditary diseases, while the later one ACKD is not genetic. ACKD is usually found among people with Chronic Kidney Disease, especially patients with the End Stage Renal Failure or on dialysis. There are three points about Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease.
People with high risk of ACKD
Without difference between male and female, children and adults, people with Chronic Kidney Disease are likely to suffer from Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease. As is reported, 90 percent patients will have ACKD if they have been on hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis for about five years. Without dialysis, patients with Kidney Failure also tend to have cysts in their kidneys, in particular, patients at the End Stage Kidney Failure or Uremia. At this point, the early dialysis might increase the risk of Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease. So it is not an external safe method for patient with Kidney Disease or Kidney Failure to prolong their lifespan.
Causing factors
At present, scholars are not clear about what causes Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease and how ACKD is caused, but there some causing factors may be involved in exerting ACKD. During dialysis, there might be some waste products not removed like polyamine, depositing in body and causing cysts to form in the kidneys. With carcinogenicity, dimethyl nitrosamine (DMN) and disinfectants in the water used in dialysis might stimulate cysts to grow in kidneys. The End Stage Kidney Failure will open many factors causing cysts such as the lack of blood and oxygen, blocking in kidney tubules, secreting substances provoking cysts and so on. Instead of merely renal pathological changes, Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease can be considered as a secondary disease after renal functions failing.
Clinical features
It is common for patients with Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease that there is usually no symptom, except blood in urine and flank pain when cysts bleed or are infected. With ultrasound or CT, patients on dialysis will have two or three cysts in their kidneys. They are usually not big, 2cm or 3cm. What’s worse, those cysts possibly transform into malignant cells. The obvious symptoms of Kidney Cancer are fever, anemia and faster ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), etc. which are often mistaken as Uremia in diagnosis.

There is no chance of passing Acquired Cystic Kidney Disease to the children of patients, but it will cause great damage or inconvenience to patients themselves.