Financial Impact of Acute Kidney Injury After Cardiac Operations in the United States

The Nationwide Inpatient Sample was interrogated for all patients undergoing either CABG, valve replacement, or both from 2008 to 2011, and a total of 1,078,036 patients were included in the analysis.   The authors discovered that, overall, 9.8% of patients developed acute kidney injury (AKI) postoperatively. Other important discoveries were:

Outcome                                        non-AKI          AKI                         p  

• Death                                     1.3%              13.9%            <0.001
• Mean hospital cost        $38,820       $77,178        <0.001

The authors calculate that the net effect of AKI after cardiac surgery at a national level in the United States is over $1 billion annually.