Acute Kidney Injury in Cardiac Surgery

increasing incidence of degenerative and lifestyle diseases, and rheumatic heart conditions. Presently, levels of cardiac surgical procedures range from 0.5 to 500 per million in low-middle to upper-middle-income countries, and estimated needs range from 200 to greater than 1000 procedures per million in low-income and highincome countries, respectively.1 Cardiac and vascular procedures are well-known risk factors for the postoperative development of acute kidney injury (AKI). Incidence of cardiac surgery?associated AKI (CSA-AKI) is as high as 40%, with about 3% of patients requiring renal replacement therapy at least temporarily.2,3 According to the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria, AKI is defined as a sudden deterioration of renal function, developing within a period of hours to days. Based on either a decrease of urine output or an increase of serum creatinine, AKI is classified in 3 stages with increasing severity (Table 1). Although the fatality of severe AKI seems to be obvious: newly required renal replacement therapy is associated with in-hospital mortalities as high as 60% and

Automated summary

The incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) after cardiac surgery is high, with about 3% of patients requiring renal replacement therapy. According to the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria, AKI is defined as a sudden deterioration of renal function, developing within a period of hours to days.