Obese Patients Face Increased Risk Of Kidney Damage After Heart Surgery

More good news! Another disease of choice we should not have to pay for.

Acute kidney injury (AKI), an abrupt decline in kidney function, is an increasingly prevalent and potentially serious condition following major surgery. Sometimes AKI arises after heart surgery because the kidneys are deprived of normal blood flow during the procedure.

To see if extra body weight puts patients at increased risk for developing AKI following heart surgery, Frederic Billings IV, MD (Vanderbilt University School of Medicine) and his colleagues evaluated information from 445 heart surgery patients, 112 of whom (25%) developed AKI.

Among the major findings:

Obese patients (body mass index, or BMI, ≥30 kg/m2) had an increased risk of developing AKI; specifically, a 26.5% increased risk per 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI.

Hooray!