Introduction: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common problem in hospitalized patients, requiring extensive treatment and carries a high mortality rate. This study was designed to assess the epidemiology of AKI, and risk factors and outcome of patients with severe AKI in a tertiary care university hospital in Iceland.
Material and methods: All adult patients with measured serum creatinine (SCr) in Landspitali University Hospital from January 2008 to December 2011, who had a measured baseline SCr in the preceeding six months, were included. Patients were categorized according to the RIFLE-criteria into risk (stage 1), injury (stage 2) and failure (stage 3) groups based on their highest SCr, using the lowest SCr in the previous six months as baseline.
Results: A total of 17,693 individuals (out of 74,960) had a baseline SCr and their data were used for analysis. AKI occurred in 3,686 (21%) with 12%, 5% and 4% of stage 1, 2 and 3, respectively. There were more females in stage 1 and stage 2 and more males in stage 3 (p< 0.001). Contributing causes for AKI in patients with stage 3 AKI were surgery (22%), circulatory shock (23%), sepsis (14%), cardiovascular insult (32%), respiratory failure (27%), bleeding (10%), trauma (7%) and AKI associated drugs (61%). Dialysis was required in 11% and in 0.7% for longer than 30 days but none > 90 days. One year survival was 52%.
Conclusions: Acute kidney injury is common in Iceland and the prognosis of those with severe AKI is dismal. Majority of those patients were taking drugs that increase risk of AKI, providing a target for preventive measures.