Original Article The economic impact of acute kidney injury in England

Background. Acute kidney injury (AKI) is one of the most common complications affecting hospital inpatients around the world. It is associated with high mortality and adverse long-term outcomes, but there is uncertainty regarding its prevalence and cost. We estimate the prevalence of AKI in hospital inpatients in a universal health-care system, and the immediate and long-term impacts on survival, quality of life and health-care costs. Methods. We examined prevalence of AKI in inpatients using both routine national data for the National Health Service (NHS) in England, and laboratory data from East Kent Hospitals. We used regression analyses to estimate the impact of AKI on mor-tality and length of hospital stay, and a Markov model to estimate the impact on quality-adjusted life years and NHS costs