Publication:

Clinicoetiological profile of acute kidney injury in paediatric intensive care unit patients

Background Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in patients in the paediatric intensive care unit and is associated with poor outcome. Present study was conducted to determine the occurrence, risk factors and etiology of AKI in the PICU.

Methods Data was collected retrospectively from case records of children admitted to PICU during one year.AKI was defined and classified according to modified pRIFLE (risk injury failure loss end stage renal disease) criteria.

Results 227 children were included in the study, 31(13.6%) developed AKI, of these 16 (51.6%) had risk, 11 (35.4%) had injury and 4 (12.9%) had failure. Overall mortality was 32.3%. 83.9% of AKI was in the age group of < 5 years. Sepsis (22.9%) was the most common etiology.

Conclusions AKI is common in children admitted to PICU. In our present study we found that hypoxia was the major risk factor for AKI followed by nephrotoxic drugs and hypotension. Females had a higher occurrence of AKI. Sepsis was found to be the commonest etiology. Greater the category of the AKI, higher was the mortality.