Introduction: Children admitted to paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) are at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI). However, few paediatric studies have focused on the identification of factors potentially associated with the development of this condition. The aim of our study was to assess the incidence rate of AKI, identify risk factors, and evaluate clinical outcome in a large sample of critically ill children. Methods: This retrospective observational study was conducted including patients admitted to our PICU from January 2014 to December 2016. AKI was defined according to Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcome criteria. Results: A total of 222 PICU patients out of 811 (27%) had AKI (stage I 39%, stage II 24%, stage III 37%). The most common PICU admission diagnoses in AKI cases were heart disease (38.6%), respiratory failure (16.8%) and postsurgical non-cardiac patients (11%). Hypoxic-ischaemic was the most frequent cause of AKI. Significant risk factors for AKI following multivariate analysis were age >2 months (OR 2.43; 95% CI 1.03–7.87; p = 0.05), serum creatinine at admission >44 µmol/L (OR 2.23; 95% CI 1.26–3.94; p = 0.006), presence of comorbidities (OR 1.84; 95% CI 1.03–3.30; p = 0.04), use of inotropes (OR 2.56; 95% CI 1.23–5.35; p= 0.012) and diuretics (OR 2.78; 95% CI 1.49–5.19; p = 0.001), exposure to nephrotoxic drugs (OR 1.66; 95% CI 1.01–2.91; p= 0.04), multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (OR 2.68; 95% CI 1.43–5.01; p = 0.002), and coagulopathy (OR 1.89; 95% CI 1.05–3.38, p = 0.03). AKI was associated with a significant longer PICU stay (median LOS of 8 days, interquartile range [IQR] 3–16, versus 4 days, IQR 2–8, in non-AKI patients; p < 0.001). The mortality rate resulted tenfold higher in AKI than non-AKI patients (12.6 vs. 1.2%; p < 0.001). Conclusions: The incidence of AKI in critically ill children is high, with an associated increased length of stay and risk of mortality. In the PICU setting, risk factors of AKI are multiple and mainly associated with illness severity.

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Background Hypertension is prevalent in children on dialysis and associated with cardiovascular disease.We studied the blood pressure (BP) trends and the evolution of BP over 1 year in children on conventional hemodialysis (HD) vs. hemodiafiltration (HDF).Methods This is a post hoc analysis of the "3H -HDF-Hearts-Height" dataset, a multicenter, parallel-arm observational study. Seventy-eight children on HD and 55 on HDF who had three 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) measures over 1 year were included. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was calculated and hypertension defined as 24-h MAP standard deviation score (SDS) ≥95th percentile.Results Poor agreement between pre-dialysis systolic BP-SDS and 24-h MAP was found (mean difference − 0.6; 95% limits of agreement −4.9-3.8). At baseline, 82% on HD and 44% on HDF were hypertensive, with uncontrolled hypertension in 88% vs. 25% respectively; p < 0.001. At 12 months, children on HDF had consistently lower MAP-SDS compared to those on HD (p < 0.001). Over 1-year follow-up, the HD group had mean MAP-SDS increase of +0.98 (95%CI 0.77-1.20; p < 0.0001),