Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common and is associated with poor short-term and long-term clinical consequences.[1] Specifically, studies[2] report a strong association of AKI and decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and progression to end-stage renal disease. But eGFR is only one clinical measure of kidney function. Less is known about the association of AKI with subsequent development of proteinuria.
Preclinical studies have suggested a mechanistic link between AKI and residual damage in the tubules, which could lead to proteinuria; however, data from clinical trials are limited. One large study[3] of more than 90,000 US veterans reported that the odds of having 1+ or greater dipstick proteinuria in the 12 months after hospitalization were significantly higher in patients who had AKI compared with those who had not had AKI. While informative, this study was limited by dipstick detection of proteinuria and clinical measures of proteinuria (which may have been ascertained for cause and thus may bias the quantification of proteinuria).
A New Prospective Study
A July 2019 study[4] published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrologyextends this previous work to examine the association of AKI and the subsequent development of proteinuria among 2048 individuals from two prospective research cohorts: the ASSESS-AKI study and a subset of the CRIC study.
