Survival and Predictors of Mortality in Acute Kidney Injury Patients Treated with Sustained Low Efficiency Dialysis

Abstract

Sustained low efficiency dialysis (SLED) is an increasingly common treatment option for acute kidney injury (AKI) patients, but there are few studies examining the survival and predictive outcome of this therapy. The study aims to evaluate survival, pre-SLED predictors and complications associated with SLED. This was a retrospective cohort study of 91 patients with AKI treated with SLED in a tertiary hospital from January 2014 to August 2018. The primary outcomes were in-hospital and 30-day mortality. The secondary outcomes were the clinical and laboratory pre-SLED characteristics that were associated with survival and complication of SLED. Median survival of AKI patients treated with SLED was 17 days and the 30-day mortality rate was 58%. Pre-SLED serum levels of creatinine (adjusted HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.71-0.94), albumin (adjusted HR 0.57, 95% CI 0.4-0.81), potassium (adjusted HR 1.38, 95% CI 1.1-1.73) and number of SLED (adjusted HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.91-1) served as predictors of survival. Arrhythmia was found 3.3% and intradialytic hypotension in 13.2% of patients. No patient had bleeding complications. Our study found similar in-hospital and 30-day mortality for AKI patients treated with SLED. High pre-SLED levels of serum albumin, creatinine and number of SLED were significantly associated with reduced risk of death and high pre-SLED serum potassium was associated with increased risk of death. These results indicate that SLED is safe treatment, with few haemorrhage and haemodynamic complications.