Sub-phenotypes of AKI: Do We Have Progress for Personalizing Care?

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is the most common form of organ dysfunction occurring in patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and contributes significantly to poor long-term outcomes. Despite this public health impact, no effective pharmacotherapy exists for AKI. One reason may be that heterogeneity is present within AKI as currently defined, thereby concealing unique pathophysiologic processes specific to certain AKI populations. Supporting this notion, we and others have shown that diversity within the AKI clinical syndrome exists and the ‘one size fits all’ approach by current diagnostic guidelines may not be ideal. A ‘precision medicine’ approach that exploits an individual’s genetic, biologic and clinical characteristics to identify AKI sub-phenotypes may overcome such limitations. Identification of AKI sub-phenotypes may address a critical unmet clinical need in AKI by 1) improving risk prognostication, 2) identifying novel pathophysiology and 3) informing a patient’s likelihood of responding to current therapeutics or establishing new therapeutic targets to prevent and treat AKI. This review discusses the current state of phenotyping AKI and future directions.