Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD): Gastrointestinal Tract Damage Caused by Chronic Renal Failure

Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) is a genetic disease. Many patients do not find the disease in the early time or do not how to prevent the disease development even if they are diagnosed with the disease. As a result, as the cysts enlarge, they will oppress the kidney tissues thus causing renal function to fail gradually. Nearly all patients with PKD will end with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF). With the patients’ renal function declining, much toxins and wastes accumulate in their body thus causing damage to their gastrointestinal tract.
After PKD develops into CRF, the incidence of gastrointestinal diseases is much high among the patients. With the accumulation of toxins and wastes, it will cause irritation to gastric mucosa. Moreover, ischemia caused by blood vessels lesions of the gastric mucosa, the unbalanced hormone secretion and some treatments of the disease are also important factors in causing gastrointestinal diseases.

Usually, gastrointestinal diseases are the earliest symptoms for patients with End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF). Every part of their digestive tract has the possibility of being damaged, especially duodenum. In addition, many patients with CRF often have various certain oral damages. In the early stage, some patients have peculiar metallic or bitter taste in their mouth and can smell ammoniacal odor when breathing. Nearly all patients have stomatitis frequently, which can influence their appetite seriously.

Many patients with CFR can often have stomach illness in the early time. When the other symptoms of CFR are not obvious, the stomach illness often is diagnosed as primary digestive tract ulcer. The patients often have vomit, nausea, sour regurgitation, belching and upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage, which is mainly caused by gastritis or peptic ulcer.

In addition, some patients with CFR often have colon diseases with the symptoms such as abdominal pain, astriction, diarrhea, haemorrhage and so on. These symptoms usually are caused by ischemic colonitis, pseudomembranous colitis, and ulcerative colitis and so on. For some patients on dialysis, when their blood is ultra filtrated, some patients often have abdominal pain, perspiration, decreased blood pressure. In this case, the diseases are often transitional and the patients can recover soon after they adjust their dialysis properly.


CFR not only causes damage to their patients’ gastrointestinal tracts, but also can damage other systems. Therefore, the patients with PKD should receive treatment as early as possible so as to prevent their disease from developing into CFR.