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Acute kidney injury

Timing of renal replacement therapy in AKI

Uncertainty exists regarding the optimal timing of initiation of renal replacement therapy in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury in the absence of urgent or life-threatening complications. Two high-profile trials — AKIKI and ELAIN — that aimed to address this issue have recently reported conflicting findings.

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Acknowledgements

S.M.B holds a Canada Research Chair in Critical Care Nephrology. The work of S.M.B and R.W. has been funded by operating grants provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the University Hospital Foundation (University of Alberta Hospital).

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Correspondence to Sean M. Bagshaw.

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S.M.B and R.W. are co-principal investigators of the Standard versus Accelerated initiation of Renal Replacement Therapy in Acute Kidney Injury (STARRT-AKI) trial, an international multicentre randomized clinical trial comparing pre-emptive renal replacement therapy initiation versus a strategy of watchful waiting in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02568722). The work of S.M.B and R.W. is supported by an unrestricted research grant from Baxter.

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Bagshaw, S., Wald, R. Timing of renal replacement therapy in AKI. Nat Rev Nephrol 12, 445–446 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneph.2016.92

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