Commonly used surrogates for baseline renal function affect the classification and prognosis of acute kidney injury

Edward D. Siew, Michael E. Matheny, T. Alp Ikizler, Julie B. Lewis, Randolph A. Miller, Lemuel R. Waitman, Alan S. Go, Chirag R. Parikh, Josh F. Peterson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

171 Scopus citations

Abstract

Studies of acute kidney injury usually lack data on pre-admission kidney function and often substitute an inpatient or imputed serum creatinine as an estimate for baseline renal function. In this study, we compared the potential error introduced by using surrogates such as (1) an estimated glomerular filtration rate of 75 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 (suggested by the Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative), (2) a minimum inpatient serum creatinine value, and (3) the first admission serum creatinine value, with values computed using pre-admission renal function. The study covered a 12-month period and included a cohort of 4863 adults admitted to the Vanderbilt University Hospital. Use of both imputed and minimum baseline serum creatinine values significantly inflated the incidence of acute kidney injury by about half, producing low specificities of 77-80%. In contrast, use of the admission serum creatinine value as baseline significantly underestimated the incidence by about a third, yielding a low sensitivity of 39%. Application of any surrogate marker led to frequent misclassification of patient deaths after acute kidney injury and differences in both in-hospital and 60-day mortality rates. Our study found that commonly used surrogates for baseline serum creatinine result in bi-directional misclassification of the incidence and prognosis of acute kidney injury in a hospital setting.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)536-542
Number of pages7
JournalKidney international
Volume77
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2010
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Acute kidney injury
  • Acute renal failure
  • Diagnosis
  • Mortality risk
  • Renal function

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nephrology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Commonly used surrogates for baseline renal function affect the classification and prognosis of acute kidney injury'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this