title: Epidemiology and natural history of acute renal failure in the ICU.
abstract: This article focuses on the incidence, risk factors, and mortality of acute renal failure (ARF) in critically ill patients. Accurate epidemiologic assessment of ARF is still a problem; as long as there is neither a uniquely accepted definition of ARF nor definitions for end points to measure, results will remain heterogeneous and hard to compare. Mortality of ARF has remained high throughout the last decades, despite further development of modern treatment modalities. This indicates that ARF is not just a matter of loss of organ function that can easily be replaced easily by extracorporeal therapies, but is a condition additionally accompanied by systemic consequences which significantly impact on prognosis.
authors.affiliation: Medical Intensive Care Unit, Department of General Internal Medicine, Medical University Innsbruck, Anichstrasse 35, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria. michael.joannidis@uibk.ac.at
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Joannidis
authors.forename: Philipp G H
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Metnitz
mesh_terms: D058186:Acute Kidney Injury / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015995:Prevalence; D011379:Prognosis; D020379:Risk Adjustment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index