ACUTE KIDNEY INJURY;

Objectives: To determine the frequency of acute kidney injury in hospitalizedpatients at Nishtar hospital, Multan. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Setting: MedicalUnit-IV, Nishtar Hospital, Multan. Duration: Duration of study was 6 months from 17/07/2015to 16/01/2016. Material and Methods: This study involved 383 patients of either sex agedbetween 37-60 years admitted to medical ward for various medical conditions. Results: Themean age of the patients was 48.96±7.24 years. There were 198 (51.7%) male and 185 (48.3%)female patients in the study group. The most frequent underlying cause requiring hospitaladmission was a respiratory tract disease observed in 153 (39.9%) patients. AKI was observedin 104 (27.2%) patients. When stratified the frequency of AKI increased significantly withincreasing age of the patient; 37-42 years vs. 43-48 years vs. 49-54 years vs. 55-60 years (17.3%vs. 22.7% vs. 26.2% vs. 42.0%; p=.001). It was also significantly (p=.000) higher in patientswith diabetes (47.4%) and hepatobiliary disease (34.7%) at admission followed by infections(26.4%) and respiratory tract diseases (17.6%). However, there was no significant difference inthe frequency of AKI across genders; male vs. female (25.8% vs. 28.6%; p=.525). Conclusion:Very high frequency of acute kidney injury was observed in our study. Acute kidney injury wassignificantly associated with increasing age particularly more than 50 years and underlyingmedical conditions with particular reference to the diabetes mellitus and hepatobiliary diseases.Serial renal parameters monitoring should be adopted for early diagnosis followed by timelymanagement of acute kidney disease. It will decrease associated disease morbidities andmortalities and will also improve quality of life of these patients.