Risk of chronic kidney disease in children who developed acute kidney injury secondary to nephrotoxic medication exposure in infancy

INTRODUCTION: Nephrotoxic medication (NTM) is one of the common causes of acute kidney injury (AKI) in critically ill infants. Current knowledge about the long-term effects of NTM exposure and associated AKI during the neonatal period and early infancy is limited. Hence, we aimed to explore the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) after NTM-AKI in this age group. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional study including children 2–7 years of age, who had a history of high NTM exposure during NICU hospitalization. Cases and controls were defined as children who developed AKI and who did not develop AKI after NTM exposure, respectively. The primary outcome of interest was to explore the prevalence of composite CKD. In addition, we explored differences in urinary biomarker kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) between the groups. RESULTS: We enrolled 48 children, 18 cases and 30 controls in which 25/48 (52%) had at least one finding of CKD. The composite CKD outcome tended to be higher in cases vs controls (61.1% vs. 46.6%, odds ratio = 1.79 (95% confidence interval 0.54-5.8)); however, this was not statistically significant. Median urinary KIM-1 value trended higher in controls, 0.367(0.23-0.59) vs. 0.20 (IQR 0.11-0.47), which was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: In this study, 52% of children exposed to NTM had at least one marker of CKD at a median age of 5 years. Multicenter, large prospective studies are needed to improve our understanding of the natural course of NTM-AKI and to determine risk factors and strategies to reduce CKD in this high-risk population.