Medullary sponge kidney: causes and treatments

Medullary sponge kidney is a little known and little understood disease. A patient with a medullary sponge kidney may undergo decades of suffering in the form of infections and pain before any diagnosis is even made. When a diagnosis is made, it is more than likely to be an incidental finding from a test for another problem. However, on diagnosis there are a number of options available to treat this condition. These include non-invasive treatments such as drug therapy, diet or extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, to invasive therapies such as percutaneous nephrolithotomy, ureteroscopy and more advanced surgery. The aim of this article is to highlight this little known condition, outline the effects, and discuss the treatment options available to patients.