Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a relatively common complication of cardiothoracic surgery and has both short- and long-term survival implications, even when AKI does not progress to severe renal failure. Given that currently, there are no active effective treatments for AKI, other than renal replacement therapy when indicated, the focus of clinicians ought to be on prevention and risk factor management. In the AKI-surgery literature, there exists this general consensus that intraoperative hypotension (IH) following hypotensive anesthesia (HA) or controlled hypotension (CH) in the operating room has no significant short-term and long-term impacts on renal function. In this review, we examine the basis for this consensus, exposing some of the flaws of the clinical study data upon which this prevailing consensus is based. We then describe our experiences in the last decade at the Mayo Clinic Health System, Eau Claire, in Northwestern Wisconsin, USA, with two selected case presentations to highlight the contribution of IH as a potent yet preventable cause of post-operative AKI. We further highlight the causative although neglected role of IH in precipitating postoperative AKI in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. We show additional risk factors associated with this syndrome and further make a strong case for the elimination of IH as an achievable mechanism to reduce overall, the incidence of hospital acquired AKI. We finally posit that as the old saying goes, prevention is indeed better than cure.
Keywords: Acute kidney injury; Chronic kidney disease; Estimated glomerular filtration rate; Renal replacement therapy; Serum creatinine trajectory.