- With Mayo Clinic urologist
Erik Castle, M.D.
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Erik Castle, M.D.
Erik Castle, M.D.
Dr. Erik Castle is a board-certified urologist who joined the Mayo Clinic staff in Arizona in 2007.
Dr. Castle is an associate professor of urology at College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and a senior associate consultant in the Department of Urology, where he also is assistant residency coordinator.
He was an assistant professor in the Department of Urology at Tulane University in New Orleans from 2004 to 2006 after serving as a clinical instructor/fellow at Mayo Clinic in Arizona for one year.
Dr. Castle's research interests include prostate cancer, bladder cancer and kidney cancer. He is the director of the Desert Mountain Prostate Cancer Research Fund and is the principal investigator of Castle labs housed at the Samuel C. Johnson Medical Research building at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. His basic science research is focused on novel secondary hormonal therapies of prostate cancer as well as genomics of prostate and bladder cancer.
His surgical expertise includes laparoscopic urology, robot-assisted radical prostatectomy with nerve sparing, robot-assisted radical cystectomy with neobladder, robot-assisted retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, robot-assisted partial nephrectomy and other robotic urologic oncology procedures. He has performed many of these procedures as demonstrations internationally. He is a member of the American Association of Clinical Urologists, the American Urological Association, the Endourological Society, and the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons. He is president of the international Society of Urologic Robotic Surgeons. He is also the director of the international laparoscopic nephrectomy courses throughout Mexico on behalf of the American Urologic Association.
Definition (1)
- Kidney cysts
Treatments and drugs (1)
- Kidney donation: Are there long-term risks?
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Question
Kidney cysts
What are kidney cysts? What causes them?
Answer
from Erik Castle, M.D.
Kidney cysts are fluid-filled sacs that form in the kidneys. They're almost always noncancerous (benign). The most common type is a simple kidney cyst, also called an acquired simple cyst. Up to half of people older than age 50 have at least one kidney cyst.
Small kidney cysts typically cause no signs or symptoms. They're often found incidentally on a computerized tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exam, or ultrasound of the kidneys done for some other reason. Kidney cysts usually need no treatment. However, some become so large that they press on other organs and require surgical removal.
Other kidney cyst disorders include polycystic kidney disease and multicystic kidney dysplasia. Although rare, these disorders can eventually lead to kidney failure.
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