Familial polycystic kidney disease in Nigeria: A report of two cases

ABSTRACT

A case of familial polycystic kidney disease is reported. Although isolated cases of adult polycystic kidney disease have been reported in our environment; no case to our knowledge has been reported with a familial link. Polycystic kidney disease is said to be rare in Africans. Although it commonly terminates in chronic renal failure; it hardly features in the aetiopathogenesis of end stage renal disease requiring some form of renal replacement therapy in African series. This; some workers believe may be due to misdiagnosis and under reporting. This report is to show that it may not be as rare as suspected; and that the familial link shown in the advanced countries is also applicable here. Case 1 was diagnosed in the course of evaluation of her clinical disease. Case 2; an aunt of Case 1; was diagnosed following investigation of a casual complaint of a painless abdominal mass in the wake of her senior brother's death from haemorrhagic stroke