Medicine: AKI and CKD Flashcards
What’s AKI?
Definition/criteria (3)
- Serum creatinine rises by ≥ 26µmol/L within 48 hours
- Serum creatinine rises ≥ 1.5 from baseline (50% greater rise in serum creatinine over past 7 days)
- Urine output < 0.5ml/kg/hr for >6 hours
diagnostic criteria (1) for AKI in children
>= 25% fall in eGFR in children / young adults in 7 days
Risk factors for AKI
- Emergency surgery, ie, risk of sepsis or hypovolaemia
- Intraperitoneal surgery
- CKD, ie if eGFR < 60
- Diabetes
- Heart failure
- Age >65 years
- Liver disease
- Use of nephrotoxic drugs
When AKI needs a referral to a nephrologist?
Refer to a nephrologist if any of the following apply:
- Renal tranplant
- ITU patient with unknown cause of AKI
- Vasculitis/ glomerulonephritis/ tubulointerstitial nephritis/ myeloma
- AKI with no known cause
- Inadequate response to treatment
- Complications of AKI
- Stage 3 AKI (see guideline for details)
- CKD stage 4 or 5
- Qualify for renal replacement hyperkalaemia / metabolic acidosis/ complications of uraemia/ fluid overload (pulmonary oedema)
Stages (3) of AKI
Examples of nephrotoxic drugs
- NSAIDs
- ACE-i/ARB
- diuretics
- aminoglycosides
- chemotherapy
- ciclosporin
- tacrolimus
- contrast
Prerenal causes of AKI
- pathophysiology
Prerenal
- ischaemia, or lack of blood flowing to the kidneys
- Impaired renal perfusion → reduced glomerular capillary filtration pressure
Examples of conditions/problems leading to prerenal causes of AKI
Examples:
- hypovolaemia secondary to diarrhoea/vomiting
- renal artery stenosis
- cardiac failure
- hepatorenal syndrome
- large or medium vessel vasculitis
What are compensatory mechanisms to maintain GFR and examples of how those mechanisms could be damaged (2)
Compensatory mechanisms to maintain GFR:
- Afferent arteriolar dilation - Impaired by NSAIDs
- Efferent arteriolar vasoconstriction - Impaired by ACE-I / ARBs
Examples of Intrinsic causes of AKI
- glomerulonephritis
- acute tubular necrosis (ATN)
- acute interstitial nephritis (AIN), respectively
- rhabdomyolysis
- tumour lysis syndrome
Pathophysiology of intrinsic AKI
- intrinsic damage to the glomeruli, renal tubules or interstitium of the kidneys themselves
- may be due to toxins (drugs, contrast etc) or immune-mediated glomuleronephritis
Pathophysiology of Postrenal AKI
Postrenal = problems after the kidneys
- obstruction to the urine coming from the kidneys resulting in things ‘backing-up’ and affecting the normal renal function
Examples of causes of postrenal AKI (3)
- kidney stone in ureter or bladder
- benign prostatic hyperplasia
- external compression of the ureter
What’s the most common cause of AKI?
Acute Tubular Necrosis
- necrosis of renal tubular epithelial cells severely affects the functioning of the kidney
- in the early stages ATN is reversible if the cause if removed
Causes of Acute Tubular Necrosis
-
ischaemia
- shock
- sepsis
-
nephrotoxins
- aminoglycosides
- myoglobin secondary to rhabdomyolysis
- radiocontrast agents
- lead
Signs and symptoms (2) of Acute Tubular Necrosis
- features of AKI: raised urea, creatinine, potassium
- muddy brown casts in the urine
(3) Histopathological features of Acute Tubular Necrosis
Histopathological features
- tubular epithelium necrosis: loss of nuclei and detachment of tubular cells from the basement membrane
- dilatation of the tubules
- necrotic cells obstruct the tubule lumen
(3) phases of Acute Tubular Necrosis
- oliguric phase
- polyuric phase
- recovery phase