Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has an effect on acute kidney injury (AKI) in chronic kidney disease patients undergoing cardiac surgery.
Methods: We reviewed literature through PubMed, Medline through PubMed and OVID, The Cochrane Library, Wan Fang Database, China Biology Medicine Database, Chinese Periodical Database, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, and Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (1980 to July 10, 2018). Two investigators independently collected the data and assessed the quality of each study. RevMan 5.3 was used for the present metaanalysis.
Results: A total of 5 RCTs (N = 678 participants) were included in the primary analysis. Pooled analysis showed that intravenous infusion of NAC significantly reduced the incidence of AKI (RR = 0.77, 95% = 0.63 to 0.94, P < .01) and that NAC could decrease the adverse cardiac events (RR = 0.83, 95% = 0.70 to 0.97, P < .05), but that it may increase the length of stay in the ICU (mean difference [MD] = 2.1, 95% CI = 1.61 to 2.60, P < .01). There were no statistically significant differences between the 2 groups in the requirement for renal replacement therapy(RRT) (RR = 1.33, 95% = 0.63 to 2.81, P = .45) and all-cause mortality (RR = 0.51, 95% = 0.25 to 1.06, P = .07).
Conclusion: Our study shows that intravenous infusion of NAC could prevent postoperative AKI in preexisting-renal-failure patients undergoing cardiac surgery.