Community-Acquired Acute Kidney Injury as a Risk Factor of de novo Heart Failure Hospitalization

Objectives: Because patients with hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (AKI) are at risk for subsequent development of heart failure (HF) and little is known about the relation between community-acquired AKI (CA-AKI) and HF, we sought to determine if CA-AKI is a risk factor for incident HF hospitalization. Methods: We utilized Baylor Scott & White Health databases at the primary care and inpatient hospitalization levels to identify adults without a prior history of HF who had 2 or more serum creatinine measurements within 13 months in the primary care setting. We defined CA-AKI as a serum creatinine increase ≥0.3 mg/dL or ≥1.5 times the baseline for consecutive values within a 13-month period. We created a flag for de novo HF hospitalization at 90, 180, and 365 days following CA-AKI evaluation. Results: In the analyses, 210,895 unique adults were included, of whom 5,358 (2.5%) had CA-AKI. Those with CA-AKI had higher rates of comorbidities, higher rate of males (48 vs. 42%, p 2 times the risk of de novo HF hospitalization compared with patients who did not have CA-AKI (90 days: 2.35 [1.83–3.02], p 0.90. Conclusion: After controlling for baseline and clinical characteristics, patients with CA-AKI were at approximately twofold the risk of de novo HF hospitalization (within 90, 180, and 365 days) compared with those who did not have CA-AKI. Hence, detecting CA-AKI may provide an opportunity for early intervention at the primary care level to possibly delay HF development.