Risk of acute kidney injury requiring hemodialysis after contrast-enhanced imaging after traumatic injury: A National Trauma Databank analysis.

Abstract

Trauma patients undergo routine contrast administration for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. The aim of this study is to investigate the incidence and predictors of contrast-induced nephropathy requiring acute hemodialysis in the trauma population. Adult patients (age ≥16) were identified from the National Trauma Databank (2017-2018) and were grouped based on contrast received. The defined groups included no contrast, computed tomography intravascular contrast only, and angiography contrast. Patient demographic and clinical variables collected included vital signs (systolic blood pressure, pulse rate) recorded upon arrival to the emergency room, injury severity score, shock index, Glasgow Coma Scale, and mechanism. Outcome measures included mortality, hospital discharge disposition, intensive care unit and hospital length of stay, and need for hemodialysis. We performed a Poisson regression to assess relative risk for undergoing hemodialysis during hospital admission. In total, 1,850,460 patients were included in the analysis (no contrast: 1,189,209; computed tomography intravascular contrast only: 621,846; angiography: 39,405); 3,135 patients required hemodialysis during the admission. Patients with reduced Glasgow Coma Scale, higher injury severity score, higher shock index, and preexisting diabetes mellitus and hypertension were more likely to require hemodialysis. Poisson regression revealed the relative risk of requiring hemodialysis as 1.49 with computed tomography intravascular contrast only, 4.33 with angiography only, and 5.35 with consecutive computed tomography intravascular and angiography. Intravascular contrast administration through computed tomography and or angiography is independently associated with increased risk of requiring hemodialysis after a traumatic injury. Trauma surgeons should consider the necessity of contrast for each clinical situation and understand the potential for contrast-induced nephropathy.