Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a regional citrate anticoagulation (RCA) protocol for continuous venovenous hemodialysis (CVVHD) in cancer patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting.
Material and methods: One hundred twenty two consecutive ICU cancer patients with AKI treated with citrate-based CVVHD were prospectively evaluated in this prospective observational study.
Results: A total of 7198 h of CVVHD therapy (250 filters) were performed. Patients were 61.3 ± 15.7 years old, 78% had solid cancer and the main AKI cause was sepsis (50%). The in-hospital mortality was 78.7%. Systemic ionized calcium (SCai) was 4.35 (4.10-4.60) mg/dL, severe hypocalcemia (SCai <3.6 mg/dL) was observed in 4.3% of procedures and post-filter ionized calcium was 1.60 (1.40-1.80) mg/dL. Median filter patency was 24.8 (11-43) hours. Factors related to filter clotting were: no tumor evidence (OR 0.44, CI 0.18-0.99); genitourinary tumor (OR 1.83, CI 1.18-2.81); platelets number (each 10,000/mm3) (OR 1.02, CI 1.00-1.04); International Normatized Ratio (INR) (OR 0.59, CI 0.41-0.85) and citrate dose (each 10 mL/h) (OR 0.88, CI 0.82-0.95).
Conclusion: Filter patency was relatively short and clotting was associated with active cancer disease, genitourinary tumor, lower citrate dose and lower INR.
Keywords: Acute kidney injury; Cancer patients; Continuous renal replacement therapy; Intensive care unit; Regional citrate anticoagulation.
Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.