The morphology of renal cystic disease.

The morphologic criteria that are applied to make distinctions among the cystic diseases of the kidney involve not the cyst itself but include rather the size, number, and distribution of cysts within the kidney(s); the site(s) along the nephron from which cysts arise; and the presence or absence of involvement in other organs. There continues to be a great need to subject these diseases to the utmost morphologic scrutiny, using all available techniques.