Work

Surgery-specific patterns of perioperative amino acid administration and associated acute kidney injury risk: a large-scale retrospective cohort study

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Recent trials demonstrated renoprotective effects of amino acid infusion in cardiac surgery patients, but real-world utilization patterns and outcomes across surgical specialties remain unknown. We investigated perioperative amino acid administration patterns and associated acute kidney injury (AKI) risk across different surgical populations. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study using the INSPIRE database (2011-2020) from Seoul National University Hospital. Adult patients undergoing surgery with ≥ 24-h stays were included. Amino acid preparations were identified by ATC codes, and AKI was defined by KDIGO criteria. Primary outcomes were AKI incidence and utilization patterns across surgical departments. RESULTS: Among 22,972 patients, 899 (3.9%) received peri-operative amino acid preparations with an overall AKI incidence of 3.7%. Utilization varied 60-fold across departments (0.2-11.5%). Surgery-specific patterns emerged: cardiac surgery showed no AKI events in amino acid users (0/50) versus 4.2% in non-users (p = 0.267), while non-cardiac surgery demonstrated increased AKI risk with amino acid use (7.4% vs 3.4%; RR = 2.16, 95% CI 1.65-2.85, p < 0.001). Multivariable analysis confirmed amino acid use as an independent AKI predictor (OR = 2.01, 95% CI 1.52-2.60). Machine learning analysis confirmed amino acids as the strongest AKI predictor, with Random Forest achieving superior performance (AUC-ROC 0.782) and revealing significant non-linear interactions. Propensity score matching (799 pairs) confirmed the association (OR = 1.63, 95% CI 1.05-2.52, p = 0.029). CONCLUSIONS: Perioperative amino acid administration demonstrates surgery-specific patterns with differential AKI associations. These findings suggest that surgery-specific factors should be considered when developing amino-acid protocols, although causality cannot be established from this observational study.

Source: Perioperative Medicine

DOI: 10.1186/s13741-025-00573-1