Troponin I serum levels predict the need of dialysis in incident sepsis patients with acute kidney injury in the intensive care unit.

INTRODUCTION: Sepsis, an extremely prevalent condition in the intensive care unit, is usually associated with organ dysfunction, which can affect heart and kidney.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the cardiac dysfunction and the Troponin I forecast the occurrence of acute renal failure in sepsis.

METHODS: Cardiac dysfunction was assessed by echocardiography and by the serum troponin I levels, and renal impairment by AKIN criteria and the need of dialysis. Twenty-nine patients with incident sepsis without previous cardiac or renal dysfunction were enrolled.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Patients averaged 75.3 ± 17.3 years old and 55% were male. Median APACHE II severity score at ICU admission was 16 (9.7 - 24.2) and mortality rate in 30 days was 45%. On the fifth day, 59% had ventricular dysfunction. Troponin serum levels on day 1 in the affected patients were 1.02 ± 0.6 ng/mL compared with 0.23 ± 0.18 ng/mL in patients without heart dysfunction (p = 0.01). Eighteen out of 29 patients (62%) underwent renal replacement therapy (RRT) and the percent of patients with ventricular dysfunction who required dialysis was higher (94% vs. 16%, p = 0.0001). Values of troponin at day 1 were used to develop a ROC curve to determine their ability to predict the need of dialysis. The area under the curve was 0.89 and the cutoff value was 0.4 ng/mL.

CONCLUSION: We found that an elevation in serum troponin levels, while guarding a relationship with ventricular dysfunction, can be a precious tool to predict the need for dialysis in sepsis patients.