Acute Kidney Injury Increases Dementia Risk

SAN DIEGO—Acute kidney injury (AKI), even with complete renal recovery, is associated with a significantly increased risk of dementia, investigators reported at the American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week 2018 meeting.

A team led by Jessica B. Kendrick, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora performed a retrospective propensity score-matched analysis of 2082 patients with no previous history of dementia and who had a hospital admission from January 1, 1999 through December 31, 2009. The investigators propensity score-matched 1041 patients with AKI followed by complete recovery (defined as discharge serum creatinine level less than 1.10 times the pre-admission baseline) with 1041 patients with AKI during the index admission. The groups had a mean age of 61 years and mean baseline serum creatinine level of 0.9 mg/dL. Dementia developed in 97 patients during a median follow-up time of 5.8 years. Dementia developed in a significantly greater proportion of patients in the AKI group than those in no-AKI group (7.0% vs 2.3%). Dementia was 3.4-fold more likely to develop among those in the AKI group compared with those in the no-AKI group.

The investigators used baseline serum creatinine level, demographic information, prior inpatient visits, season of admission, and all components of the Charlson Comorbidity Index to generate the propensity score.

“Our data add to the literature that AKI, even with complete recovery, is associated with long-term adverse outcomes,” Dr Kendrick told Renal & Urology News. “There is a critical need for research identifying ways to prevent long-term consequences of AKI.”

Reference

Kendrick JB, Holmen JR, Srinivas T, et al. AKI is associated with an increased risk of dementia. Presented at the American Society of Nephrology’s 2018 Kidney Week meeting in San Diego, Oct. 23-28. Abstract TH_OR116.

From the December 01, 2018 Issue of Renal and Urology News