Open AccessAltered kidney function on the Acute Medical Unit
Author(s) -
Tim Cooksley,
Ben Lovell,
P. G. Chandra L. Nanayakkara,
Praveen Bhatia,
Mikkel Brabrand,
Tom Heaps,
Mark Holland,
Dan Lasserson,
Nick Murch,
Chris Subbé,
Louise Van Galen,
Louella Vaughan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
acute medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.14
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1747-4892
pISSN - 1747-4884
DOI - 10.52964/amja.0765
Subject(s) - medicine , acute kidney injury , kidney disease , renal function , intensive care medicine , medical unit , biomarker , kidney , dosing , drug , disease , emergency medicine , pharmacology , biochemistry , chemistry
Reduced kidney function, whether acute or chronic, is a highly significant biomarker of in most clinical settings. This is particularly true on the acute medical take where altered renal function is associated with a worse prognosis, and may also impact on immediate management strategies such as drug choice, dosing and suspension, and the use of contrast agents for imaging. In this edition of the Acute Medical Journal, Yang et al present the results of their study describing the renal function and associated characteristics in 2,070 consecutive patients presenting on the unselected medical take at their hospital over a 40 day period. In this study, the authors provide a wealth of information on the general characteristics of acute medical patients admitted with altered kidney function, be it CKD or AKI. Importantly, both chronic kidney disease (CKD) and acute kidney injury (AKI) are very highly prevalent. Indeed, in this study more than 5% of all medical admissions actually demonstrated evidence of both.