Acute kidney injury in an intensive care unit of a general hospital with emergency room specializing in trauma: an observational prospective study

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common among intensive care unit (ICU) patients and is associated with high mortality. Type of ICU, category of admission diagnosis, and socioeconomic characteristics of the region can impact AKI outcomes. We aimed to determine incidence, associated factors and mortality of AKI among trauma and non-trauma patients in a general ICU from a low-income area. Methods: We studied 279 consecutive patients in an ICU during a follow-up of one year. Patients with less than 24-hour stay in the ICU and with chronic kidney disease were excluded. AKI was classified according to the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria in three stages. Comparisons were performed by the Student-t and Mann-Whitney tests for continuous variables, respectively with and without normal distribution. Comparisons of frequencies were carried out by the Fisher test. Multivariate logistic regression was used to test variables as predictors for AKI and death. Results: Admission categories were proportionally divided into 51.6% of non-trauma diagnosis and 48.4% of trauma cases. Most trauma cases involved brain injury (79.5%). The overall incidence of AKI was 32.9%, distributed among the three stages: 33.7% stage 1, 29.4% stage 2 and 36.9% stage-3. Patients who developed AKI were older, had more diabetes, stayed longer in the ICU, presented higher APACHE II and more often needed mechanical ventilation and use of vasopressors. In comparison with non-trauma cases, trauma patients had a greater prevalence of males, higher APACHE II score, higher urine output, and younger age. There was no difference concerning development of AKI and crude mortality between trauma and non-trauma patients. Age, presence of diabetes, APACHE score and use of vasopressors were independent predictors for AKI, and AKI increased the risk of death ten-fold (OR = 14.51; CI 95% = 7.94-26.61; p < 0.001). Conclusions: There was a high incidence of AKI in this study. AKI was strongly associated with mortality both among trauma and non-trauma patients. Trauma cases, especially brain injury due to traffic accidents involving motorized two-wheeled vehicles, should be seen as an important preventable cause of AKI.