“What causes renal atrophy?” This is the question that many patients with renal atrophy are most concerned about. It is understood that once the disease of renal atrophy occurs, it will seriously hinder the normal renal function of the patient and bring more harm. However, many patients do not know why they will suffer from renal atrophy, do not know what causes renal atrophy. What causes renal atrophy? Kidney atrophy is usually characterized by left kidney atrophy, right kidney atrophy and double kidney atrophy. Generally speaking, the causes of renal atrophy are as follows: firstly, renal atrophy should be considered as congenital renal insufficiency, and secondly, it should be considered as end-stage renal disease, i.e., renal failure, uremia, or certain acute diseases. Such as: acute glomerular disease, diabetic renal sclerosis, renal transplant rejection, chronic glomerulonephritis, renal cortical necrosis, acute tubular necrosis, hypertensive nephrosclerosis. First of all, bilateral kidney or one side of kidney shrinkage is mostly the cause of chronic pyelonephritis, which is also a common cause of renal atrophy. Bilateral kidney shrinkage is generally speaking chronic kidney disease develops to renal insufficiency, especially when renal failure and uremia, blood creatinine and urea nitrogen are elevated, renal injury is serious, renal parenchyma is harmed, and the kidneys will shrink. Therefore, patients with renal atrophy must pay great attention to this, renal disease is very insidious, if the glomerular filtration rate is less than 50%, that is, when the kidney is seriously damaged, clinical symptoms will only arise accordingly. After the diagnosis of renal atrophy, we must actively look for the cause, in order to investigate the condition. In addition, there are two other causes of renal atrophy: renal tuberculosis (unilateral shrinkage of the kidney, accompanied by contralateral hydronephrosis or compensatory enlargement), renal artery stenosis and congenital hypoplasia. Generally speaking, renal atrophy is closely related to prolonged renal diseases, in which the whole kidney appears to shrink in size due to damage to renal units, especially glomeruli, caused by kidney-like diseases. Renal atrophy and renal function changes are complementary, when the patient has renal atrophy has been or will inevitably develop renal insufficiency and renal failure – uremia. Warm reminder: once the patient is diagnosed as suffering from renal atrophy, this phenomenon indicates that the patient’s kidneys have been seriously damaged. If the patient is not treated actively, the condition may deteriorate to the stage of uremia. It is believed that all patients are afraid of hearing about uremia, therefore, when suffering from renal atrophy, patients should be treated early to prevent the disease from deteriorating and bringing very serious consequences to themselves.