Abstract:Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of and medications for hospital-acquired acute kidney injury (HA-AKI) in the patients in geriatric wards. Methods A retrospective analysis was made of 7029 hospitalized patients aged over 60 years in the Geriatric Ward of Guangdong General Hospital from January 2012 to December 2016. According to the criteria of serum creatinine (SCr) change in Kidney Disease:Improving Global Outcomes(KDIGO), patients were divided into HA-AKI group (n=1830)and non-AKI group (n=4650). The 2 groups were compared in clinical characteristics, use of drugs that may cause nephrotoxicity, and relationship between use of drugs and discharge outcomes. SPSS statistics 20.0 was used for statistical analysis. Depending on data type, Student′s t test, χ2 or trend tests were used for comparison. Results The incidence of HA-AKI was 26.03%(1830/7029). Compared with non-AKI group, HA-AKI group had more advanced age, higher baseline SCr, higher percentage of patients with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)<60 ml/(min·1.73 m2), higher incidence of chronic kidney disease, diabetes mellitus, connective tissue disease, cerebrovascular disease, and peripheral vascular disease, and higher Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) score≥3 (P<0.001). The HA-AKI groups also had a higher proportion of nephrotoxic drugs such as diuretic and dehydrating agent, adrenergic receptor agonists, anti-heart failure drugs and aminoglycosides than the non-AKI group. In addition, the HA-AKI group were higher than the non-AKI [JP+1]group in the percentage of patients requiring transfer to ICU [6.0%(110/1830) vs1.5%(68/4650)],cardio-pulmonary resuscitation [0.7%(12/1830) vs 0.3%(12/4650)] and dialysis [2.0% (36/1830) vs 0.1%(1/4650)], length of hospital stay [(15.9±6.5) vs (13.6±6.5)d] and hospitalization costs [(5.7±4.0)×104 vs (4.4±2.9)×104 RMB¥]and in-hospital mortality [11.3%(207/1830) vs 0.9%(41/4650)] (P<0.05). Moreover, the use of diuretic and dehydrating agent, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), adrenergic receptor agonists, aminoglycosides, and chemotherapeutic agent continued to increase even after the occurrence of HA-AKI, and the greater the number of the drugs used, the worse the tendency of the in-hospital adverse outcomes (P<0.001). Conclusion Incidence of HA-AKI is high in geriatric wards, which is attributable to the higher age, more comorbidities and number of nephrotoxic drugs used before the onset, causing serious outcomes and increasing burden on medical care.