What Are The Financial Costs Of Polycystic Kidney Disease
Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a genetic disease. Patients with PKD will need to pay cost persistently for their disease, and what are the financial cost of PKD?
Kidney function is divided into five stages according to patient’s glomerular filtration rate (GFR). For PKD patient who is in stage 1 and 2, their kidneys function are able to complete their work, and patients may not need to spend much money in treating their disease, only when they pay cost in controlling the PKD progression, like seeking doctor and dietitian to guid their eating measures, taking medicines to slow down the progression and preventing its aggravation.
For patients who are in stage 3, which means their GFR is between 30~59. The cysts may have not become so big that need surgery to relieve patient’s condition. But some complications will appear in this stage, like anemia, hypertension, infection, etc. So treatments to control this aspect will be needed, but for patients in stage 3, these complications are generally not severe, and patients will not need pay much cost in their treatment.
While for patients with stage 4 PKD, they may have many obvious complications, and the cysts in their kidneys will grow very big. In this stage, patients will need to have surgery to remove the big cysts in their kidneys, so they will need to pay much more cost in their treatment. In addition, they will also need to have regular test to make sure their kidney condition.
While if patient’s PKD has progressed into stage 5, patients will need dialysis or kidney transplant to guarantee their life, and the financial will rise greatly in this time. On one hand, patients can have severe complications easily, and they will have to pay cost to control them. On the other hand, patients will need to take dialysis regularly, which will cost their money continuously. Or if patients choose to have kidney transplant, except for the cost of surgery, patients will always need to cope with their rejection reaction to the transplanted kidney, which will also need patient to spend money persistently.
As we know, different patients will have different conditions, so the costs of PKD will be very different from one patient to another.
In fact, most patients will not have obvious symptoms in 10 to 20 years since they get PKD, so the best method to deal with this disease is to prevent this disease and slow down its progression when patient is in the early stage. PKD is a genetic disease, so people should be careful if any family member has this disease. In fact, except for medicines, many methods are useful to control this diseases, especially when the cysts are small. Thereby, it is very important for patients to deal with their condition positively.
In the end, if you are facing with this condition and have any doubt, you are welcome to contact us, and we are willing to help you.
