Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug-associated acute kidney injury: does short-term NSAID use pose a risk in hospitalized patients?

Purpose While renal risk associated with short-term use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) has been anecdotally documented, no conclusive evidence is available on the renal safety, especially among hospitalized patients with reduced renal function. This study is to evaluate the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) associated with NSAID use in hospital. Methods A retrospective matched cohort study utilizing electronic health records from two large academic tertiary-care hospitals was conducted. We defined AKI based on changes in SCr according to published AKI criteria. The hospital acquired AKI risk associated with inpatient NSAID use was assessed using a time-dependent Cox proportional hazard regression in pooled cohort as well as two sub cohorts stratified by baseline renal function. Results A total of 18,794 admissions were included in the final cohort. Of 9397 admissions exposed to NSAIDs, 7914 and 1483 admissions were in the “without” and “with baseline renal impairment” cohort, with the same number of matching non-exposed admissions in each of the stratified cohort. The AKI incidences were 6 and 22 events per 1000 patient-days in “without” and “with preexisting renal impairment” cohort, respectively. The adjusted analyses suggested that NSAID use increased AKI risk in patients with preexisting renal impairment (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.38 [1.04–1.83]) but not in the patients without preexisting renal impairment (HR: 0.83 [95% CIs: 0.63–1.08]) or in the pooled cohort (HR: 1.01 [95% CIs: 0.83–1.24]). Conclusion Our findings suggested that NSAID use is associated with an increased risk of AKI in the hospitalized patients with preexisting renal impairment but the association is not statistically significant in those who have preserved renal function. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to validate these observational findings.