PKD is Easily Complicated by UrinaryTract Infection

Urinary tract infection is one of the common complications of Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), it includes cystitis, pyelonephritis, cysts infection and perinephric abscess. As for about 20 percent PKD patients, urinary tract infection is the earliest complication among the various complications of PKD. There are 50-70 percent of patients who are attacked by urinary tract infection once or more, and this complication is more common among women. When urinary tract infection occurs, patients had better prolong the time of taking antibiotics, however, it is hard to cure this complication completely and most of the urinary tract infection will develop to perinephric abscess and ichorrhemia, which have to be treated by surgical operations or drainage. According to clinical observations, 1/3 of PKD patients with chronic haemorrhagia are accompanied with urinary tract infection. Though patients have adopted antibiotic in time and prolonged the time of taking antibiotic, there are still some patients who are attacked by perinephric abscess and some patient even die because of this. So it is really very important to prevent and treat the urinary tract infection.

How to prevent and find the urinary tract infection in time? What are the symptoms of urinary tract infection? When PKD patients are accompanied with cystitis, their main symptoms include urgent urination, odynuria and pubis bow area pain. If the cystitis affected the upper urinary tract, there are the symptoms of persistent high fever and backache. In clinical, it is very hard to make the differential diagnosis of pyelonephritis and cysts infection. Generally speaking, positive urine culture, increase of leukocyte in blood and the rapid reaction to routine anti-infective treatment are the signals of pyelonephritis. While positive blood culture and local tenderness are the signals of cysts infections.

When PKD patients doubt they are accompanied with urinary tract infection, they should adopt imagining examinations. By abdominal plain film we can find the position and size and amount of urinary tract stones and the perinephric abscess. While CT examination has good sensitivity to perinephric abscess. As for patients who are accompanied with urinary tract infections apparatus examinations will increase the possibility of getting ichorrhemia. So patients had better avoid the pyelogram.


As for the treatment of urinary tract infection, the key point is adopting effective antibiotic. As for patients who have repeated urinary tract infection, it is effective to adopt antibiotic to prevent from infection. When the apparatus examination is inevitable, patients should antibiotic before 24 hours to prevent from infection.