Acute Kidney Injury Predicts Mortality after Charcoal Burning Suicide

A paucity of literature exists on risk factors for mortality in charcoal burning suicide. In this observational study, we analyzed the data of 126 patients with charcoal burning suicide that seen between 2002 and 2013. Patients were grouped according to status of renal damage as acute kidney injury (N = 49) or non-acute kidney injury (N = 77). It was found that patients with acute kidney injury suffered severer complications such as respiratory failure (P = 0.002), myocardial injury (P = 0.049), hepatic injury (P < 0.001), rhabdomyolysis (P = 0.045) and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (P = 0.028) than patients without acute kidney injury. Moreover, patients with acute kidney injury suffered longer hospitalization duration (16.9 ± 18.3 versus 10.7 ± 10.9, P = 0.002) and had higher mortality rate (8.2% versus 0%, P = 0.011) than patients without injury. In a multivariate Cox regression model, it was demonstrated that serum creatinine level (P = 0.019) and heart rate (P = 0.022) were significant risk factors for mortality. Finally, Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with acute kidney injury suffered lower cumulative survival than without injury (P = 0.016). In summary, the overall mortality rate of charcoal burning suicide population was 3.2%, and acute kidney injury was a powerful predictor of mortality. Further studies are warranted.