A Study of Acute Kidney Injury in Stroke Patients and Its Relationship to Short-term Outcome

BACKGROUND: Acute stroke patients often develop AKI. AKI is associated with poor clinical outcomes, but stroke incidence and outcomes data are scarce. AIM: The aim is to examine the prevalence of AKI in acute stroke patients, risk factors, and clinical outcomes of patients with and without AKI. METHODS: This prospective observational study was carried out at a tertiary care center. The study examined 139 patients with acute ischemic stroke and intracerebral bleeding. AKI was defined as per the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes guidelines. The study measured acute stroke patients, AKI prevalence, cause of death, hospital stay duration, dialysis need, and outcome of ischemic versus hemorrhagic stroke outcomes. AKI and hospital mortality were outcomes in a multivariate logistic regression model with gender, age, ventilatory requirement, hospital stay duration, and NIHS scale at admission as covariates. RESULTS: Out of 112 ischemic strokes, with 6 deaths (5.35%) and 27 intracranial hemorrhages (ICH) with 10 deaths (8.92%). The average age was 54 years, 68.34% were male, and AKI complicated 74.3% of ischemic stroke and 25.6% of ICH hospitalizations. In multivariate analysis, AKI and hospital mortality are the outcomes. Covariates include age, gender, ventilatory requirement, duration of hospital stay, and National Institute of Health Stroke Scales Score at admission. AKI was associated with hospital mortality from ischemic stroke (odds ratio (OR): 25.25, 95% confidence interval (CI): 4.4-225.21) and hemorrhagic stroke (OR: 5.20, 95% CI: 1.32-22.34). CONCLUSIONS: AKI complicates stroke and increases hospital mortality, requiring further research on a large scale to understand the causal relationship and whether preventing AKI could reduce mortality.