Acute Medicine | Renal | Investigation and management of acute kidney injury

Investigation and Management of Acute Kidney Injury
Session Overview
Description
This session considers the definition, assessment, investigation and management of acute kidney injury (AKI). The principles of fluid and drug prescribing are discussed.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Describe the causes of AKI
• Determine how to investigate AKI
• Explain why estimated GFR (eGFR) is not valid in AKI
• Explain the principles of prescribing in AKI
• Describe how to initiate non-specialist management of AKI

Acute kidney injury (AKI) has now replaced the term acute renal failure.

The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) report in 2009 identified the need for significant improvement in the prevention, identification and management of AKI:

• 1/5 of patients who died of AKI which occurred post admission had predictable and avoidable AKI
• 43% of patients who developed AKI in hospital had an unacceptable delay in the identification of AKI
• Care was considered good in 50% of patients overall and in patients who developed AKI post-admission this dropped to 33% [1]

A universal definition and staging system is being developed to allow earlier detection and management of AKI.