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Acute kidney injury

Creatinine and AKI—through a glass, darkly

Nature Reviews Nephrology volume 9, pages 193–195 (2013)Cite this article

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Pickering et al. report that unchanging plasma creatinine levels after resuscitated cardiac arrest can indicate substantial acute kidney injury (AKI) as confirmed by increased levels of AKI biomarkers and increased mortality. This finding illustrates the limitations of plasma-creatinine-based diagnosis of AKI in early critical illness.

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Figure 1: The predicted effect of a 25% decrease in creatinine generation rate on the rate of increase in serum creatinine levels and the peak serum creatinine concentration following a 60% decrease in GFR from a steady state.

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Acknowledgements

C. Kirwan, A. Leitch and L. Forni contributed to discussions of this topic with the author.

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  1. Adult Critical Care Unit, The Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, Whitechapel Road, E1 1BB, London, UK

    John R. Prowle

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Prowle, J. Creatinine and AKI—through a glass, darkly. Nat Rev Nephrol 9, 193–195 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneph.2013.40

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