Regional cyst concentration as a prognostic biomarker for polycystic kidney disease

摘要

Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a major cause of renal failure. Despite recent advances in understanding the biochemistry and genetics of PKD, the functional mechanisms underpinning the declines in renal function observed in the disorder are not well established. No studies investigating the distribution of cysts within polycystic kidneys exist. This work introduces regional cyst concentration as a new biomarker for evaluation of patients suffering from PKD. We derive a method to define central and peripheral regions of the kidney, approximating the anatomical division between cortex and medulla, and apply it to two cohorts of ten patients with early/mild or late/severe disease. Our results from the late/severe cohort show peripheral cyst concentration correlates with the current standard PKD biomarker, total kidney volume (TKV), significantly better than central cyst concentration (p ＜ 0.05). We also find that cyst concentration was globally increased in the late/severe cohort (p ＜＜ 0.01) compared to the early/mild cohort, for both central and peripheral regions. These findings show cysts in PKD are not distributed homogeneously throughout the renal tissues.