Each year, more than three million patients undergo cardiac surgery worldwide. Acute kidney injury (AKI) complicates as many as 36% of these procedures, doubling total hospital costs. Even minor changes of serum creatinine in the postoperative period have been associated with decreased survival. When dialysis is required, short-term mortality may exceed 60%. Moreover, AKI predicts increased long-term mortality regardless of other risk factors even when kidney function has recovered. Despite this, clinicians have limited tools to preoperatively identify patients at risk for AKI. Identification of high-risk patients preoperatively could impact clinical decision making around surgical technique (e.g. off-pump) and timing of surgery in addition to perioperative management (hemodynamic monitoring, use of certain drugs, fluid management etc.).~The prospective single-center study investigates whether abnormal preoperative Doppler-based renal venous flow profiles as surrogates for right heart failure predict risk of acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery.
The prospective single-center study investigates whether preoperative Doppler-based renal venous flow profiles predict risk of acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery.