Kidney Diseases
Kidney function can be impaired by several ways, for example infections, tumors, kidney stones, exposure to dangerous chemicals and circulatory disease. Millions of people in UK have kidney disease.
Here are some examples of kidney diseases:
Renal Dysplasia
 |
|
- Renal dysplasia is a congenital kidney disease characterised by abnormal differentiation of renal tissues.
Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)
Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polycystic_kidneys,_gross_pathology_20G0027_lores.jpg
- PKD is also a congenital kidney disease
- A PKD patient has multiple fluid-filled cysts in both kidneys
- Causes massive enlargement ot kidneys
- There are 2 types of PKD: autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive
Nephrolithiasis
Refers to the condition when an individial has kidney stones(renal calculi)- Kidney stones that are at least 1.5 mm in size can cause obstruction of the ureter, leading to excruciating pain, most commonly felt in the flank and lower abdomen
- Presence of kidney stones causes dilation and stretching of upper ureter and renal pelvis
- Can lead to destruction of nephrons
Kidney stone. Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nefrolit.jpg
Glomerulonephritis
- Is an autoimmune disease caused by inflammation of the glomeruli
- Can be divided into 2 types: proliferative (increase in number of cells in glomerulus) and non-proliferative (decrease in number of cells in glomerulus)
Diabetic nephropathy (Kimmelstiel-Wilson syndrome)
- Is a disease caused by angiopathy of capillaries in the glomeruli
- Often occurs in diabetes mellitus patients
Image courtesy of Flickr under Creative Commons license.