Acute kidney injury, or AKI, is a common complication of cardiac catheterization, posing higher costs, longer hospital stays and increased short-term and long-term mortality risk.
In a large, randomized trial conducted over a period of 18 months at 19 medical centers of the Veterans Health Administration, a quality improvement implementation trial found a 46% reduction in the odds of AKI after cardiac catheterization.
Led by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, in Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, in Burlington, the trial was reported Jan. 13 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.