Then three months. Then six weeks. The sweet boy died in my arms of congestive heart failure approximately one year following the initial episode. I later found out that there were a notable number of deaths from kidney disorders from the cats of his particular line. At the time, no one knew for certain if the kidney lesions were an inherited disorder.
Recent research shows however that cystic kidneys are inherited.
The disorder is not sex related, so either males or females can develop the disease. It is a dominant gene. The difficulty is, the disorder is seldom noticed in very young cats, so the cat grows to maturity, and breeds before developing symptoms, if ever. Without ever being diagnosed. The alarming fact is, PKD may be quite wide spread in American Persians.