Acute kidney injury: prevention, detection and management
This guideline covers preventing, detecting, and managing acute kidney injury in children (aged above 1 month and below 12 years), young people (aged 12 to 17 years) and adults (aged 18 years or older). It aims to improve assessment and detection by non-specialist clinicians, and specifies when they should refer people to specialist services. This will reduce the chance of death or complications for people at risk of acute kidney injury.
Acute kidney injury, previously known as acute renal failure, encompasses a wide spectrum of injury to the kidneys, not just kidney failure. The definition of acute kidney injury has changed in recent years, and detection is now mostly based on monitoring creatinine levels, with or without urine output. Acute kidney injury is increasingly being seen in primary care in people without any acute illness, and awareness of the condition needs to be raised among primary care health professionals.