High-sensitivity C-reactive protein as a predictive factor of acute kidney injury following aneurysmal subarachnoid...

High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is a well-recognized biomarker of neurologic complications and clinical outcome of stroke patients. However, whether hs-CRP can predict the occurrence of acute kidney injury (AKI) in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) patients is still unclear. The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of using serum hs-CRP level to predict the occurrence of AKI in aSAH patients.

One hundred sixty-four aSAH patients were enrolled into a prospective observational study. AKI was diagnosed using the modified Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) standard. The relationship between serum hs-CRP level at admission and occurrence of AKI was analyzed.

AKI occurred in 17 patients (10.4%) in this cohort. Patients with AKI had significantly higher hs-CRP levels than those without. The mortality of the AKI group tends to be higher than that of the non-AKI group, but the difference was not statistically significant (4/17 (23.5%) vs. 13/147 (8.8%), P = 0.081). After adjusting for possible confounding factors including World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies grade, diabetes, and serum creatinine, multivariate analysis revealed that serum hs-CRP level and antibiotic therapy were both significant factors independently associated with AKI following aSAH (serum hs-CRP: OR = 1.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.1-1.3, P = 0.003; antibiotic therapy: OR = 5.8, 95%CI = 1.6-20.7, P = 0.007). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that hs-CRP had a sensitivity of 76.5% and a specificity of 64.6% for predicting the development of AKI on the basis of the best thresholds. The post hoc log-rank test revealed that patients having serum hs-CRP level > 6.6 mg/L had a significantly higher AKI rate than patients having serum hs-CRP level ≤ 6.6 mg/L (P = 0.001).

Serum hs-CRP level might be helpful as a predictor for the development of AKI in aSAH patients. Delayed cerebral ischemia occurrence rate and mortality of patients with AKI tend to be higher than those of patients without in this cohort; however, they were not significantly different.