Kidney Cyst

[MarMar]

So over the past couple of months Marlo has been having some pee problems. First was a bout of some diarrhea, a little bit of puking, and lots of water/peeing. U/A showed a minor infection, exam was normal except abdominal tenderness and blood work (cause I'm paranoid) was normal except slightly elevated creatinine. All was fine for a bit until we went away for 6 days (myself and my two dogs). Becky did fine but Marlo didn't deal with the trip very well: he was very stressed for most of the time.

Several days after getting back, I felt something wasn't quite right with him...and the vet thought a repeat U/A was a good idea anyways, so I sent some urine (my roommate works at a vet clinic and we're both techs although I don't work in the field right now). This time it came back SG high off the charts and blood, but no infection. The vet suspected interstitial cystitis and dehydration. We suspect that the poor guy wasn't drinking enough while we were away. Conveniently, my roommate is also good friends with the ultrasound tech that works in our town and so yesterday we u/s'd him on my coffee table

His bladder looked normal, his right kidney was fine but there's a large fluid filled cyst in his left kidney. The good news is that its not a tumour or polycystic kidney disease. The bad (ish) news is that no one seems to have really heard of or seen simple kidney cysts in dogs. The vet thinks that this accounts for the blood in his urine and his kidneys seem to be WORKING fine, but...I just want to know more! Has anyone seen this/heard of it? The vet is also not very concerned that it's going to be detrimental to his health but I'm a worried owner of course.

[MarMar]

No one has seen this?

[afrikaPB]

I'll ask my vets at work if they've seen this before when I'm next in.

[jtalt7]

Ripley had cysts all over his kidneys, wasnt anything that shortened his life. He was a senior when I took him in so i am not sure when they popped up as he always had them when I had him.

[MarMar]

Thanks guys! I'm trying not to worry because no one else is really worried but the fact that they're so uncommon (or at least information on them is uncommon) is a bit concerning for me. jalt7, how did you find the cysts on Ripley's kidneys? Was he having symptoms, or were they found on a scan for something else?

[jtalt7]

Im crazy and do ultrasounds on all my seniors yearly. Found it on his first US. His kidney values never changed. BUN and CRT also stayed the same.

[jtalt7]

Always not also

[Misskiwi67]

I saw a kidney cyst from a dog once - during my necropsy rotation in vet school. It was cancer, and it was the only time the staff pathologist had seen it, so it was very rare. I don't remember if he had seen other non-cancerous cysts or not.

The only way to find out what it is for sure is to do surgery and get a piece of the cyst. The risks of doing that are considerable and likely not worth the information you will get from it.

I would recommend taking your dog to an internal medicine specialist for more information.

[MarMar]

Thanks everyone for your input. I put the word out amongst my vet friends and managed to find a couple of vets who have seen them and they do say they are incidental unless infected. MissKiwi, I do hope to take him to an internal med specialist, there is a doctor who comes to the island who my tech friend used to work for and so I hope to take him to see her.

[Nichole]

I don't do dogs, my experience is limited to humans. I am a sonographer by trade, and we see renal cysts all the time, especially in the 40+ yr crowd. The older you are the more likely we are to see at least one, usually more. Simple cysts themselves are benign. I don't know if renal cell carcinoma is something dogs get, but in humans it is a solid mass, not cystic. Not even complex (mix of cyst and solid). There are other types of cancers we can see in kidneys, but none of them present as cysts. Again, this is humans, not dogs.

Do you have pics from the ultrasound? Did the tech measure the cyst?

I have scanned my pups too. I was paranoid about PCKD in Violet because she wasn't growing. Pretty irrational, but it was fine and I felt better

[MarMar]

Thanks Nichole! I was hoping you'd answer because I've seen you post about your job before. She did measure the cyst but I don't know how big it is, however, I should be able to get some pics of it after the vet reviews the report. I didn't get a great look at it as I was holding Marlo's head and couldn't see the screen, but from what I saw and what she told me, it was completely cystic and not a tumour (it looked like a bladder to me ) When I get some screen shots of it I'll post them here. Oh and she said it was definitely not PCKD.

[Nichole]

It sounds promising that it'll be okay. Chances are it's been there this whole time and really this is an incidental finding. The snag is since there aren't any comparisons it's impossible to know if it's related to his issues. If they have measurements from that first ultrasound, they can repeat the scan in a month or so and see if there are any changes. If it is stable it's probably old news and has probably been there for a while.

(again, using my experience with humans here...)