Abstract: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common and serious complication in critically ill patients. The mortality rate remains high despite improved renal replacement techniques. A possible cause of the high mortality rate is that intensive care unit patients tend to be older and more debilitated than before. Pathophysiological
factors associated with AKI are also incriminated in the failure of other organs, indicating that AKI is often part of a multiple organ failure syndrome. Until recently, practitioners lacked consensus as to the best definition of AKI. The introduction of the RIFLE (Risk, Injury, Failure, Loss, and End-stage kidney disease) criteria and the modified version proposed by the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) have increased the conceptual understanding of AKI, and these criteria have been successfully tested in clinical studies.

Key words: Acute kidney injury, Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, Cirrhosis, Sepsis, Acute respiratory, distress syndrome, Intensive care unit