Background: 10-20% of hospitalized patients develop acute kidney injury (AKI)/acute renal failure during their hospital stay. The mortality of nosocomial AKI is approximately 30%.
Methods: This review is based on relevant publications retrieved by a search in multiple databases (PubMed and Uptodate), archives, and pertinent medical journals.
Results: The most common causes of nosocomial AKI are volume depletion, sepsis, heart diseases, polytrauma, liver diseases, and drug toxicity. AKI can also be of postrenal (obstructive) origin, or a result of renal diseases including glomeruloneph- ritis, vasculitis, tubulointerstitial nephritis, and cholesterol embolism. In about 13% of cases, nosocomial AKI develops on the basis of pre-existing chronic renal disease. Patients with AKI are at elevated risk of developing chronic renal disease and must be followed up appropriately after they are discharged from the hospital. Indispens- able elements of the evaluation of nosocomial AKI include renal ultrasonography, the exclusion of postrenal obstruction, urine chemistry, and microbiological urinaly- sis. Potentially nephrotoxic drugs and those that impair renal hemodynamics must be avoided to the greatest possible extent in patients with acute renal damage. Hypotension must be avoided as well.
Conclusion: Early, specific nephrological diagnosis and treatment are important components of the management of nosocomial AKI, particularly because causally directed treatment is available for some of the conditions that underlie it.