title: Latent AKI is… still AKI: the quantification of the burden of renal dysfunction.
abstract: The association between pediatric cardiac surgery, acute kidney injury (AKI), and clinical outcomes has been studied several times in the recent literature. In this issue of Critical Care an interesting and original study analyzed the path from causal AKI entities to clinical AKI consequences through the application of structural equation modeling. The authors described the complex connections linking duration of cardiopulmonary bypass, cross clamp-time, and descriptors of low cardiac output syndrome to AKI modeled as a complex variable composed of post-operative serum creatinine increase of 50 % over baseline, urine output <0.5 ml/kg/h, and urine creatinine-normalized neutrophil gelatinase lipocalin within 12 h of surgery. Similarly, the causal relationships between AKI and hard outcomes in the analyzed population were verified and quantified. The authors, for the first time, produce a repeatable coefficient (0.741) that may become a useful quality benchmark and could be applied to test future interventions aiming to reduce the burden of AKI on children's clinical course.
authors: Department of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Piazza S. Onofrio 4, 00165, Rome, Italy. zaccaria.ricci@gmail.com.
authors: Zaccaria
authors: Z
authors: Ricci
authors: Department of Health Science, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.|Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Florence, Italy.
authors: Stefano
authors: S
authors: Romagnoli
authors: Department of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Piazza S. Onofrio 4, 00165, Rome, Italy.
authors: Luca
authors: L
authors: Di Chiara
mesh_terms: D058186:Acute Kidney Injury / Q000097:blood; D000209:Acute-Phase Proteins / Q000652:urine*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002648:Child; D003404:Creatinine / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D000071068:Lipocalin-2; D054834:Lipocalins / Q000652:urine; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000652:urine
chemical_list: D000209:Acute-Phase Proteins; D015415:Biomarkers; D000071068:Lipocalin-2; D054834:Lipocalins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D003404:Creatinine
keywords: Acute kidney injury; Cardiopulmonary bypass; Congenital heart disease; Neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin