Acute kidney injury in critically ill patients after oncological surgery: Risk factors and 1-year mortality

We aimed to identify risk factors associated with acute kidney injury (AKI) and to analyse 1-year mortality after oncological surgery.

We retrospectively included 434 adult patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after oncological surgery, and classified AKI according to the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes criteria. We performed logistic regression and Cox regression analyses to evaluate AKI and mortality risk factors.

Sixty-one percent of patients (n = 264) developed AKI. Previous abdominal radiotherapy and abdominal surgical packing were independently associated with stage 2 and 3 AKI, with adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 2.6 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-5.5, p = .010) and OR of 2.6 (95% CI 1.2-5.5, p = .014), respectively. Other independent risk factors were: glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <60 ml/min/1.73m² (OR 3.6, 95% CI 1.2-11.4, p = .028), abdominal surgery 2.6 (1.4-4.9, p = .003), intraoperative diuresis <1 ml/k/h (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.4-4.0, p = .001), sepsis (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.3-4.6, p = .002) and mechanical ventilation at ICU admission (OR 7.7, 95% CI 3.2-18.6, p < .001). Stage 2 and stage 3 AKI were independently associated with 1-year mortality, with adjusted hazard ratios (HR) of 2.6 (95% CI 1.3-5.0, p = .005) and HR of 5.0 (95% CI 2.6-9.6, p < .001), respectively. Additionally, patients who had postsurgical AKI, had a lower eGFR at 1-year follow-up. These findings may be limited by the retrospective single centre design of our study.

In addition to the conventional risk factors, our results suggest that abdominal radiotherapy and abdominal surgical packing could be independent risk factors for AKI after oncological surgery.