Incidence of Early Acute Kidney Injury in Lung Transplant Patients: A Single-Center Experience

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in the early period of lung transplantation (LTx). We aimed to describe the incidence and perioperative risk factors associated with AKI following LTx.

Clinical data of 30 patients who underwent LTx were retrospectively reviewed. Primary outcomes were development of AKI and patient mortality within 30 postoperative days. Postoperative AKI is determined based on creatinine criteria from Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) classification. Secondary outcomes included the association between AKI and demographic and clinical parameters of patients and treatment modalities in the pre- and postoperative periods.

Of the 30 LTx recipients included, AKI occurred in 16 patients (53.4%) within the first 30 days. Length of intensive care unit (P = .06) and hospital stay (P = .008) and mechanical ventilation duration (P = .03) were significantly higher in patients with AKI compared with patients without AKI. Factors independently associated with AKI were intraoperative hypotension (odds ratio [OR] 0.500; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.145 to 26.412, P = .02), longer duration of mechanical ventilation (OR 1.204; 95% CI 0.870 to 1.665, P = .03), and systemic infection (OR 8.067; 95% CI 1.538 to 42.318, P = .014) in the postoperative period. Short-term mortality was similar in patients with and patients without AKI.

By the AKIN definition, AKI occurred in half of the patients following LTx. Several variables including intraoperative hypotension, longer duration of mechanical ventilation, and systemic infection in the postoperative period independently predict AKI in LTx recipients.