Acute kidney injury in children treated in intensive care unit – a prospective epidemiologic analysis

Introduction: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in hospitalised in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. The reported prevalence of AKI in critically ill patients ranges from 5% to 31% in adult ICU and from 4.5% to 10% in paediatric ICU. The incidents of AKI in ICU depend on several reasons, such as the hospital reference level and structure (surgery clinics and A&E units). Aim of the study: Assess the prevalence of AKI in critically ill children in multidisciplinary hospital with nephrology unit. Methods: We performed a prospective, descriptive epidemiological study assessing incidence of AKI in paediatric ICU patients. The research was conducted over a 1/2-year period. All consecutive admissions to the PICU were included unless they met one of the exclusion criteria, i.e. age 18 years of age, brain death at entry, expected PICU stay of