Acute Renal Failure: Accuracy of a Classification Based on Time to Recovery

Abstract

Among the suspected mechanisms of acute kidney injury (AKI), pre-renal AKI has long been differentiated from other subtypes of AKI, such as acute tubular necrosis (ATN). This distinction has been challenged by several recent studies. Thus, recent studies reported typical histopathological findings of ATN to be fairly uncommon in both experimental and human studies and its features to be patchy. The classic pre-renal/intrinsic paradigm has been revisited and AKI are now mainly separated according to short-term reversibility of AKI. In this article, we will review the findings supporting such change and the potential interest for research purposes or at bedside in reporting AKI according to short-term reversibility.