Fluid management of acute kidney injury

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is commonly encountered in critical care medicine as is intravenous fluid therapy. It is accepted that there is interplay between fluid use and AKI, both potentially positive and negative. An understanding of the physiological rationale for fluid is important to help clinicians when considering fluid therapy in patients with, or at risk for AKI; this includes understanding choice of fluid, method of monitoring, administration and clinical sequelae.

There is increasing interest in combining both static and dynamic measures to assess fluid balance, fluid responsiveness effects of fluid therapy, which are areas requiring ongoing study to translate this theory into clinically useful practice at the bedside. Whilst the debate of choice of crystalloid in ICU practice continues, further evidence for benefits for balanced solutions emerges in the form of international guidelines and patient data meta-analysis of previously performed trials.

This review assesses the physiological rationale for fluid use in ICU cohorts with AKI of various types, as well as a systematic approach for choice of fluid therapy using a number of different variables, which aims to help guide clinicians in managing fluid use and fluid balance in critically ill patients with AKI.