Early coronary angiography not tied to higher risk of acute kidney injury in cardiac arrest survivors: Study

Netherlands: Performing early coronary angiography is safe with respect to the risk of developing acute kidney injury (AKI) after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), a study has claimed.

The study, published in Annals of Intensive Care found that early angiography was not associated with a higher incidence of AKI than a deferred angiography strategy although AKI occurred in about 20% of OHCA patients. 

Acute kidney injury is a common complication in survivors of cardiac arrest and is associated with adverse outcomes. There is no clarity on whether the AKI incidence increases after the post-cardiac arrest contrast administration for coronary angiography. And, whether this depends on the angiography timings. 

Considering the above, Gladys N. Janssens and colleagues from the Netherlands aimed to investigate whether early angiography is associated with increased AKI development compared to deferred angiography in survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in a retrospective multicenter cohort study. 

The researchers investigated whether early angiography (within 2 h) after OHCA was non-inferior to deferred angiography with regard to AKI development. The primary analysis using propensity score matching was repeated as a sensitivity analysis. To identify predictors of acute kidney injury, a multivariable model was built.