Acute Kidney Injury
Acute Kidney Injury Chapter Overview
Jennifer Kong and Lyz Boyd
Chapter Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Define kidney injury and differentiate between acute and chronic types.
- Explain how injury leads to acute death of nephrons based on its cause originating before, within, or after the kidney.
- Identify histological features in the nephron associated with acute kidney injury.
- List common clinical manifestations of acute kidney injury and explain the pathophysiology behind each.
- Briefly describe how interprofessional collaboration of health care professions work towards diagnosis of acute kidney injury.
While most people are aware of the general functions of their heart, lungs, or brain, the functions of the kidneys are rarely thought of or referred to in day-to-day life. Throughout your life, your kidneys quietly perform their important tasks without your knowledge. However, if a pathological process affects the function of the kidneys, you will quickly become sick and the situation may become life threatening. In this chapter, we will explore various pathologies that impact the kidneys on both gross and histological levels. We will also examine clinical correlations to acute kidney injury (AKI), which is defined as a rapid decrease in kidney function.
This chapter is subdivided into:
- Pre-test
- Gross & Microscopic anatomy of kidney
- Physiology of urine formation
- Gross anatomy of normal kidney
- Histology of normal kidney
- Clinical presentations of AKI
- Gross pathology of AKI
- Histopathology of AKI
- Treatment and prognosis of AKI
- Consequences of AKI in other systems
- Diagnosis of AKI and interprofessional collaboration
- Chapter summary
- Post-test
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used throughout the chapter.
| ADH | Antidiuretic Hormone |
| AKI | Acute Kidney Injury |
| ATN | Acute Tubular Necrosis |
| BPH | Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy |
| CKD | Chronic Kidney Disease |
| DCT | Distal Convoluted Tubule |
| GFR | Glomerular Filtration Rate |
| LoH | Loop of Henle |
| NFP | Net Filtration Pressure |
| PCT | Proximal Convoluted Tubule |
| RAAS | Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System |
| UTIs | Urinary Tract Infections |
