Common Complications of Polycystic Kidney Disease

Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) is not just a kidney disorder; other organs can also be affected, including the liver, spleen, pancreas, vasculature, testes, seminal vesicles and intestines.

A large percentage of people with PKD will develop liver cysts during their lifetime. Liver cysts rarely occur in those under the age of 30 but do form and increase as a person ages. Even though there is an increase in liver size, the amount of functional liver tissue remains fairly constant. Liver cysts occur as often in men as in women. However, women have liver cysts at a younger age than men and usually have more aggressive liver disease. Women who have been pregnant are more likely to have liver cysts; and the cysts are more numerous and larger in women who have been pregnant compared to women who have not been pregnant.

Cardiovascular complications include high blood pressure, cerebral aneurysms and mitral valve prolapse (MVP), a condition where the valve separating the top and the bottom of the left side of the heart does not close properly. Sometimes this causes blood to leak back to the top part of the heart. This is called regurgitation and can be heard as a heart murmur. MVP occurs in approximately 26% of the people who have PKD compared to 2%-3% of the general population. Symptoms that can be associated with MVP are palpitations, a feeling that the heart is running away or that there are extra beats in the heart, and chest pain that is not associated with exercise or exertion.

People with PKD have about a 5%-10% risk of developing intracranial aneurysms; the percentage is higher if there is a family history of aneurysms. An aneurysm is an out-pouching in a blood vessel. Intracranial aneurysms occur in the blood vessels of the brain. Aneurysms can leak or rupture. The symptoms of a ruptured aneurysm can include sudden severe headache, pain in moving the neck, nausea and vomiting, and even loss of consciousness. All such symptoms require immediate medical attention. Patients with ADPKD and a family history of intracranial aneurysms have a higher incidence of developing an aneurysm (22%) and should be screened more frequently.


Gastrointestinal complications of PKD include diverticulosis. Diverticula are out-pouchings of the large intestine (colon). It seems that people with PKD who are on dialysis or have had a transplant have diverticula more often and have more complications from diverticula, including infection (divertiulitis), than people who have other kidney diseases. In addition to liver cysts, cysts can also form in the pancreas.