Research
Population-based incidence, mortality and quality of life in critically ill patients treated with renal replacement therapy: a nationwide retrospective cohort study in finnish intensive care units
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* Corresponding author: Suvi T Vaara suvi.vaara@helsinki.fi
Critical Care 2012, 16:R13 doi:10.1186/cc11158
Published: 20 January 2012Abstract (provisional)
Introduction
Acute kidney injury (AKI) increases mortality and morbidity of critically ill patients. Mortality of patients treated with renal replacement therapy (RRT) is high. We aimed to evaluate the nationwide incidence of RRT-treated AKI in Finland, hospital and six-month mortality, and health re-lated quality of life (HRQoL) of these patients.
Methods
We performed a retrospective cohort study including all general intensive care unit (ICU) admissions in Finland in 2007-2008. We identified patients who had received RRT due to AKI (RRT patients) and compared these patients to ICU patients who were not treated with RRT (non-RRT pa-tients). The HRQoL was assessed by the EQ-5D index and visual analogue scale (VAS).
Results
We analysed the final cohort of 24904 patients, of whom 1686 received RRT due to AKI. The incidence of RRT-treated AKI was 6.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] 6.5-7.1%) among [greater than or equal to]15 year old general ICU patients, which corresponds to a yearly population-based incidence of 19.2 per 100000 (95% CI 17.9-20.5/100000). According to RIFLE (Risk, Injury, Failure) classification 26.6% (95% CI 26.0-27.2%) of patients had AKI (RIFLE R-F). Hospital and six-month mortality of RRT patients were 35.0% and 49.4%. At six-months, RRT patients perceived their health as good as non-RRT patients by VAS.
Conclusions
The population-based incidence of AKI treated with RRT was 19.2 per 100000 in Finland and 6.8% of all general ICU patients. The hospital and six-month mortality rates were lower than previ-ously reported for ICU-treated RRT patients.