Markers of Poor Prognosis in Patients Requiring Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy After Cardiac Surgery.

Objective: Acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy after cardiac surgery has an incidence of 2% to 15%, and mortality in affected patients approximates 50%. The authors aimed to study the determinants of poor prognosis in patients receiving continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) after cardiac surgery.

Design: Retrospective, observational single-center study.

Setting: Tertiary care, university hospital.

Participants: Cardiac surgery patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) needing postoperative CRRT between January 1, 2010, and September 31, 2019.

Interventions: Predictors of mortality were examined using groupwide comparisons between ICU survivors versus nonsurvivors and univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards models.

Results: During the study period, 67 cardiac surgery patients without prior maintenance dialysis required CRRT postoperatively. ICU mortality was 47.7% and 90-day mortality was 58.2%. Only 37.3% of patients were alive at 1 year after surgery. Blood lactate at the start of dialysis was the most significant predictor of ICU and overall mortality. Eighty-seven percent of patients with lactate >3 mmol/L died in the ICU compared with 27.3% of patients with lactate ≤3 mmol/L (p < 0.0001). In patients with lactate exceeding 5.3 mmol/L, ICU mortality was 100%. In a stepwise multivariate Cox proportional hazards model, the association with mortality remained significant for lactate at the start of CRRT (per 1 mmol/L, hazard ratio [HR] 1.19 [95% confidence interval {CI} 1.11-1.28], p < 0.0001), troponin T on the first postoperative morning (per 0.1 µg/L, HR 1.004 [95% CI 1.001-1.008], p = 0.01), and 72-hour fluid balance (per 1000 mL, HR 1.12 [95% CI 1.04-1.21], p = 0.005).

Conclusion: Blood lactate at the start of dialysis was the most significant predictor of ICU and overall mortality in patients with CRRT after cardiac surgery.