Introduction: No predictive models for long-term mortality in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) exist. We aimed to develop and validate two predictive models for one-year mortality in patients with AKI based on data (1) on intensive care unit (ICU) admission and (2) on the third day (D3) in the ICU.
Methods: This substudy of the FINNAKI study comprised 774 patients with early AKI (diagnosed within 24 hours of ICU admission). We selected predictors a priori based on previous studies, clinical judgment, and differences between one-year survivors and non-survivors in patients with AKI. We validated the models internally with bootstrapping.
Results: Of 774 patients, 308 (39.8%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 36.3 to 43.3) died during one year. Predictors of one-year mortality on admission were: advanced age, diminished premorbid functional performance, co-morbidities, emergency admission, and resuscitation or hypotension preceding ICU admission. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) (95% CI) for the admission model was 0.76 (0.72 to 0.79) and the mean bootstrap-adjusted AUC 0.75 (0.74 to 0.75). Advanced age, need for mechanical ventilation on D3, number of co-morbidities, higher modified SAPS II score, the highest bilirubin value by D3, and the lowest base excess value on D3 remained predictors of one-year mortality on D3. The AUC (95% CI) for the D3 model was 0.80 (0.75 to 0.85) and by bootstrapping 0.79 (0.77 to 0.80).
Conclusions: The prognostic performance of the admission data-based model was acceptable, but not good. The D3 model for one-year mortality performed fairly well in patients with early AKI.