Long-term Outcomes of Acute Kidney Injury: The Power and Pitfalls of Observational/Population-Based Studies

Acute kidney injury (AKI) can affect 1 in 3 hospitalized patients and increases the risk for mortality and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Both experimental studies and observational evidence confirm the biologically plausible link between a single episode of AKI and long-term progressive kidney damage leading to a decline in glomerular filtration rate (GFR; summarized in Fig 1).1-3