Spectrum of community-acquired acute kidney injury in India: a retrospective study

An understanding of the epidemiology of community-acquired acute kidney injury (CAAKI) is necessary to establish its overall burden and plan potential preventive strategies. This study was done in an urban tertiary care center in northern India with the aim to identify the etiology and outcomes as well as the factors associated with in-hospital mortality of CAAKI patients. A five year retrospective analysis of all patients with CAAKI admitted to the Nephrology Department from January 2005 to December 2009 was done. From 5499 consecutive patients, 240 patients (2.5%), with a mean age of 39.8 ± 14.48 years, were diagnosed to have CAAKI as per our specified criteria. The most common cause of CAAKI was medical (77.5%), followed by obstetrical (14.2%) and surgical (8.3%) causes. Among the medical causes, acute diarrheal disease was the most common cause (29%), followed by malaria (18.8%) and sepsis (13.9%). Sepsis had the highest in-hospital mortality (46%). Nephrolithiasis was the most common surgical cause. Puerperal sepsis (44.1%), pre-eclampsia (23.5%), intrauterine death (11.8%), antenatal hemorrhage (11.8%) and post-partal hemorrhage (8.8%) were the obstetric causes of CAAKI. Among 45 patients who underwent a renal biopsy, acute tubulointerstitial nephritis (33.3%) was the most common, followed by acute tubular necrosis (22.2%), glomerulonephritis (17.7%), thrombotic microangiopathy (17.7%) and acute cortical necrosis (8.89%). Of the 83% patients who underwent dialytic therapy, 44.5% underwent hemodialysis, 22.5% continuous veno-venous hemodiafiltration, 21.6% sustained low efficiency dialysis and 11.4% peritoneal dialysis. The overall in-hospital mortality among patients with CAAKI was 26.20%. CAAKI remains a common problem affecting nearly 2.5% of patients attending nephrology units.