The following is a summary of “Renal angina index for early identification of risk of acute kidney injury in critically ill children,” published in the October 2023 issue of Nephrology by Alves et al.
Renal Angina Index (RAI) is associated with the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) based on the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) (stage ≥ 2) in 72 h in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) patients. Researchers started a retrospective study to evaluate the performance of the RAI in predicting AKI in a specialized oncology PICU.
They involved children aged ≥3 months to <18 years admitted to two pediatric intensive care units within a general hospital and an oncology hospital in 2017, with a minimum length of stay of 72 hours.
The results showed 249 patients, with 51% being male (127 patients), a median age of 77 months, and an average ICU stay of 5 days. Among the admissions, 57% were clinical (141 patients) and 43% were surgical. The AKI rate stood at 15%, while the 30-day mortality rate was 13%. Having a positive RAI upon admission displayed a statistically significant association with AKI at Day 3 (OR = 18.5, 95%CI = 4.3 – 78.9, P<0.001) and with mortality (OR = 3.9, 95%CI = 1.6 – 9.9, P=0.004). The RAI’s accuracy in the cancer population on the ROC curve was 0.81 (95%CI 0.74, 0.88).
They concluded that RAI predicts AKI and death in critically ill children, including oncology patients.
Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00467-023-06170-y