The growth of acute kidney injury: Eastern European perspective

Abstract

To the Editor: We read with much interest an excellent and thorough review published in the January issue of Kidney International by Siew and Davenport on an alarming increase in incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) in North America and Western Europe.1 The question asked by the Authors, namely whether these changes reflect the real rise or are rather driven by better diagnostics, reimbursement issues, and a more liberal use of dialysis, seems to be crucial and should prompt future well-designed studies. Therefore, we would like to share our experience. Recently, we retrospectively analyzed the data obtained from individual hospital records of 774 consecutive patients with AKI, as defined by KDIGO criteria,2 requiring dialysis (AKI-D) in our single university hospital between Jan 2005 and Dec 2009. A subgroup of 126 patients, residents of three identifiable districts of Warsaw covered by the hospital with an estimated adult population of 149,687, were isolated to count the incidence.