Association between dexmedetomidine administration and outcomes in critically ill patients with sepsis-associated acute kidney injury.

Study Objective: To investigate the association between dexmedetomidine administration and outcomes in critically ill patients with sepsis-associated acute kidney injury (SA-AKI).

Design: A single-center, retrospective, cohort study.

Setting: Intensive care unit (ICU).

Patients: A total of 2192 critically ill patients with SA-AKI were included in the analysis, which identified from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC-IV) database between 2008 and 2019.

Interventions: Intravenous infusion of dexmedetomidine.

Measurements: The primary outcome was recovery of renal function. In-hospital mortality, vasopressor requirements, length of ICU and hospital stay were considered secondary outcomes. The Cox proportional hazards, logistic regression, and linear regression models were used to assess the association between dexmedetomidine and outcomes. Propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was used to match patients receiving dexmedetomidine to those without treatment.

Main Results: After PSM, 719 matched patient pairs were derived from patients who received dexmedetomidine and those who did not. The administration of dexmedetomidine was associated with a higher rate of renal recovery [61.8% vs. 55.8%, hazard ratio (HR) 1.35; P = 0.01], reduced in-hospital mortality [28.3% vs. 41.3%, HR 0.56; P < 0.001], and prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) stay [15.8d vs 12.6d, HR 2.34; P < 0.001] and hospital stay [23.7d vs 19.7d, HR 4.47; P < 0.001]. No significant difference was found in vasopressor requirements in patients with SA-AKI. Nevertheless, results illustrated that dose receiving between 0.30 and 1.00 μg/kg/h and duration using under 48 h of dexmedetomidine was associated with improvements in renal function recovery in SA-AKI patients.

Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine administration was associated with improvements in renal function recovery and in-hospital survival in critically ill patients with SA-AKI. The results need to be verified in further randomized controlled trials.