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Review article: Biomedical intelligence

Vol. 142 No. 3334 (2012)

New insights in acute kidney failure in the critically ill

  • Zaccaria Ricci
  • Claudio Ronco
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2012.13662
Cite this as:
Swiss Med Wkly. 2012;142:w13662
Published
12.08.2012

Summary

The term acute kidney injury (AKI) has been recently coined by a large panel of international experts in place of the former expression “acute renal failure”. This change has been motivated by a double intention: first it served to definitely find a conventional definition for acute changes of renal function, previously lacking in the medical community. In fact, any attempt to compare scientific papers and different centres experiences on AKI was essentially impossible. The second aim was to remark that this syndrome is characterised by a spectrum of progressive damage, from mild creatinine increase to renal injury to a more severe form, failure: this important concept should increase clinicians awareness to every form of renal dysfunction, even milder ones, in order to improve epidemiologic analyses, potentially preventing eventual AKI progression and finally helping standardisation of medical and supportive therapy. This review will describe such “new era” of critical care nephrology by presenting current literature (and its many controversies) about AKI diagnosis, physiopathology and management.

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