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Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staff
Treatment may not be necessary
If your simple kidney cyst causes no signs or symptoms and doesn't interfere with your kidney function, you may not require treatment. Instead, your doctor may recommend that you undergo an imaging test, such as ultrasound, periodically to see whether your kidney cyst has enlarged. If your kidney cyst changes and causes signs and symptoms, you may opt to have treatment at that time. Sometimes a simple kidney cyst goes away on its own.
Treatments for kidney cysts that cause signs and symptoms
If your simple kidney cyst is causing signs and symptoms, your doctor may recommend treatment. Options may include:
- Puncturing the cyst and filling it with alcohol. To shrink the cyst, your doctor inserts a long, thin needle through your skin and through the wall of the kidney cyst. Then the fluid is drained from the cyst. Next, the cyst is often filled with an alcohol solution to prevent it from reforming. The cyst may return, so this procedure is reserved for certain situations.
- Surgery to remove the cyst. A large cyst may require surgery to drain and remove it. To access the cyst, the surgeon makes several small incisions in your skin and inserts special tools and a small video camera. While watching a video monitor in the operating room, the surgeon guides the tools to the kidney and uses them to drain the fluid from the cyst. Then the walls of the cyst are cut or burned away.
- Torres VE, et al. Cystic diseases of the kidney. In: Brenner BM. Brenner & Rector's The Kidney. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2008. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/linkTo?type=bookPage&isbn=978-1-4160-3105-5&eid=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-3105-5..X5001-4--TOP. Accessed March 30, 2010.
- McAninch JW. Disorders of the kidney. In: Tanagho EA, et al. Smith's General Urology. 17th ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Companies; 2008. http://www.accessmedicine.com/resourceTOC.aspx?resourceID=21. Accessed April 18, 2010.
- Simple kidney cysts. National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/cysts/index.htm. Accessed March 30, 2010.
- The kidneys and how they work. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/yourkidneys/. Accessed April 20, 2010.
- Castle EP (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale/Phoenix, Ariz. April 22, 2010.
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