Abstract: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common critical disease, and renal replacement therapy (RRT) has become an important treatment for AKI patients. However, there is no consensus about the optimal timing for RRT. At present, several clinical features including serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, urine volume, the time admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) and AKI stage are the factors to determine when RRT should be used. Most clinical studies considered that AKI patients may benefit from early RRT, but others had the opposite conclusion. Large scale, multicenter, prospective, and randomized control trials are needed to find out the optimal time point between early and late RRT for AKI patients.

Key words: Acute kidney injury, Renal replacement therapy, Timing of treatment