Need help?
[email protected]
A CDI Pocket Guide® customer recently sent us a question regarding the 1.5x diagnostic criteria for acute kidney injury, and we thought others may benefit:
The CDI Pocket Guide® includes one of the AKI diagnostic criteria as: "Increase in Creatinine > 1.5x baseline (historical or measured) which is known or presumed to have occurred within the prior 7 days.”
However, in our "Guidelines" for applying this AKI criterion states: The 1.5x diagnostic criteria “can be applied prospectively and retrospectively with broad interpretation of the baseline level which may be one from 6 months or even one year previously if there is no known CKD.”
How we can have a baseline up to one year old but the diagnostic criteria states within the prior 7 days?
A creatinine level from 6 months to as much as a year before may be used as a baseline to identify AKI at the time of admission─if the patient did not have preexisting CKD or another dramatic change in health since then. If a patient is admitted for an acute illness and the creatinine is > 1.5x the past baseline level, it is “presumed” to have occurred within the prior 7 days, and AKI can be diagnosed.
For example, a previously healthy patient is admitted for nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration. His creatinine level was 2.0, and his creatinine level four months ago was 1.0. It is presumed that the creatinine increased to twice the previous level during this acute illness (within 7 days) confirming AKI.
In such circumstances the elevated admission creatinine would also be expected to return to or near the historical baseline further confirming it as acute. For example, if the prior baseline were 1.0 and the admission creatinine of 2.0 returned to 1.2 at discharge, the diagnosis of AKI is indisputable.
Should the elevated admission creatinine unexpectedly remain well above the prior baseline, AKI is not fully substantiated. Further investigation is necessary to determine the cause. For example, an admission creatinine of 2.0 (with a prior baseline of 1.0) that remains elevated between 1.7−2.0 does not confirm AKI.
Patients with CKD may also have AKI if the patient is admitted with a creatinine level that is 1.5x their baseline. For example, a patient with CKD and a stated baseline of 1.8 is admitted with a creatinine of 2.5 which decreases to 1.6 with IV fluids. The true baseline is now 1.6 and 2.5 is > 1.5x this level, confirming AKI with chronic CKD.
Get our CDI Pocket Guide® to learn more acute and chronic kidney injury.
Copyright 2022 Pinson & Tang
Receive updates on new Resources, Products, and Events.
