Acute kidney injury after liver surgery: does postoperative urine output correlate with postoperative serum creatinine?

Acute kidney injury (AKI) after hepatectomy occurs in around 10% of cases. AKI is often defined based only on postoperative serum creatinine increase. This study aimed to assess if postoperative urine output (UO) correlated with serum creatinine after hepatectomy. All consecutive hepatectomy patients (2010-2016) were assessed. AKI was defined according to KDIGO criteria: serum creatinine increase ≥26.5 μmol/l, creatinine increase ≥1.5x baseline creatinine, or postoperative oliguria. Oliguria was defined as daily mean UO 360 minutes was the only predictor of creatinine increase (HR = 3.6, 95%CI: 1.1-11.4, p = 0.032). Postoperative UO showed poor correlation with postoperative serum creatinine both in all patients and AKI patients. Surgery duration >360 minutes appeared as the only independent predictor of postoperative serum creatinine increase.