Acute kidney injury

Abstract

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is the new consensus term for various degrees of acute renal injury or failure. 1,2 We will use this term throughout this chapter instead of the previous term failure in keeping with such consensus statements. AKI is a frequently diagnosed in patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). 3-5 Unfortunately, until recently, the definition of AKI has been a confounding element in its epidemiology. 6 This is because the diagnosis of AKI is complex and involves data obtained from history, biochemical analysis, body size, sex, hematological information, and imaging. Accordingly, depending on the definition used, 7 the incidence of AKI in ICU is in the range of 1-25%.8-12 In order to develop a widely accepted definition of AKI to facilitate communication and research in this field, the second International Consensus Conference of the Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative in 2002 proposed a classification scheme for AKI. © 2010 Springer-Verlag US.