Acute kidney injuries rare after contrast media procedures, but repeated administration increases risk
Fewer than one percent of patients develop an acute kidney injury (AKI) after a contrast media procedure, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
The authors studied medical and pharmacy claims data for more than 2.7 million adults between the ages of 18 and 64 who had at least a year of continuous enrollment before undergoing the first contrast media procedure and had gone through at least 30 days after a contrast media procedure. Contrast media procedures were identified by seeking specific CPT codes.
Overall, the risk of developing an AKI following a contrast media procedure was fund to be 0.85 percent.
When patients had two or more such procedures within 30 days, however, that number jumped to 26 percent, showing that repeated contrast administration greatly increases a patient’s risk of AKI. And 10 percent of patients who do develop an AKI had already gone through a previous AKI. These statistics stand out, the authors explained, because they indicate that a prior AKI can tell healthcare providers a lot about a patient.
“The finding should impact clinical practice and should be particularly considered in patient histories before contrast media, with a positive finding of a prior AKI being noted as adding to patient risk,” wrote Trudy Millard Krause, DrPH, UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston, Texas, and colleagues. “Additionally, the findings from this study and the potential development of a subsequent risk assessment model might support the movement for shared health information data through health information exchanges, smart cards, or shared electronic health records.”
The authors noted that one limitation of their study was that it lacked a control group including patients who did not receive contrast media. In addition, since codes were used to organize the data, it’s possible that coding errors could have impacted the statistics.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.