The Impact of Acute Kidney Injury on Chronic Kidney Disease After Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of acute kidney injury on transition to chronic kidney disease (CKD) after cardiac surgery and to determine frequency of incident CKD in these patients.

Design: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.

Setting: Electronic databases Medline and Embase were systematically searched from 1974 to February 6, 2023.

Participants: Eligible studies were original observational studies on adult cardiac surgery patients, written in the English language, and with clear kidney disease definitions. Exclusion criteria were studies with previously transplanted populations, populations with preoperative kidney impairment, ventricular assist device procedures, endovascular procedures, a kidney follow-up period of <90 days, and studies not presenting necessary data for effect size calculations.

Interventions: Patients developing postoperative acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery were compared with patients who did not develop acute kidney injury.

Measurements and main results: The search identified 4,329 unique studies, 87 underwent full-text review, and 12 were included for analysis. Mean acute kidney injury occurrence across studies was 16% (minimum-maximum: 8-50), while mean occurrence of CKD was 24% (minimum-maximum: 3-35), with high variability depending on definitions and follow-up time. Acute kidney injury was associated with increased odds of CKD in all individual studies. The pooled odds ratio across studies was 5.67 (95% confidence interval, 3.34-9.64; p < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery was associated with a more than 5-fold increased odds of developing CKD. New-onset CKD occurred in almost 1 in 4 patients in the years after surgery.