Incidence and impact of acute kidney injury on patients with implantable left ventricular assist devices: a Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: We aimed to evaluate the acute kidney injury (AKI) incidence and its associated risk of mortality in patients with implantable left ventricular assist devices (LVAD). Methods: A systematic literature search in Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Databases was conducted through January 2020 to identify studies that provided data on the AKI incidence and AKI-associated mortality risk in adult patients with implantable LVADs. Pooled effect estimates were examined using random-effects, generic inverse variance method of DerSimonian-Laird. Results: Fifty-six cohort studies with 63,663 LVAD patients were enrolled in this meta-analysis. The pooled incidence of reported AKI was 24.9% (95%CI: 20.1%–30.4%) but rose to 36.9% (95%CI: 31.1%–43.1%) when applying the standard definition of AKI per RIFLE, AKIN, and KDIGO criteria. The pooled incidence of severe AKI requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT) was 12.6% (95%CI: 10.5%–15.0%). AKI incidence did not differ significantly between types of LVAD (p =.35) or indication for LVAD use (p =.62). While meta-regression analysis did not demonstrate a significant association between study year and overall AKI incidence (p =.55), the study year was negatively correlated with the incidence of severe AKI requiring RRT (slope = −0.068, p