Up to 100,000 deaths a year are associated with acute kidney injury. It’s common, serious and harmful and in many cases it’s preventable. However, it is extremely difficult to recognise. As such, healthcare professionals need to be aware of the triggers and warning signs for acute kidney injury and always be looking out for it in their patients.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) describes the sudden and rapid deterioration in a patient’s renal function over hours or days. It is not a disease itself but rather the result of underlying health issues which increase the risk and trigger this deterioration. In the early stages of acute kidney injury, there may not be any symptoms. It is often recognised by reduced urine output and/or increased serum creatinine (a waste product in the blood that comes from muscle activity), although this isn’t always the case.

Someone with acute kidney injury can deteriorate quickly and suddenly experience nausea and vomiting, confusion, low or high blood pressure, abdominal pain, slight backache or oedema. Acute kidney injury is classified into three stages, depending on the severity, and can range from minor loss of kidney function to complete failure in which the kidneys shut down and cause irreversible and potentially fatal damage.

Acute kidney injury should not be confused with chronic kidney disease, which is an abnormality of kidney function or structure that is present for more than three months. In chronic kidney disease, the kidneys gradually lose function over a long period of time, rather then it happening suddenly, as in AKI.