Association between acute kidney injury and brain injury on term-equivalent age brain magnetic resonance imaging in very preterm infants

Background This study aimed to investigate the relationship between acute kidney injury (AKI) in the first 2 weeks of life and brain injury on term-equivalent age magnetic resonance imaging in very preterm infants. Methods We included 116 infants with a birth weight of < 1500 g who were born at the King Saud Medical City at ≤ 32 gestational weeks. They were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit and underwent term-equivalent age and pre-discharge brain magnetic resonance imaging. A negative binomial with generalized linear models and a robust variance estimator (Huber–White) was applied for univariate relative risk analysis. The Kidokoro score was then used to determine the effect of AKI on brain morphology and growth at term-equivalent age. Results Sixty-eight (64.2%) infants had developed an AKI in the first 2 weeks of life. AKI was significantly associated with cerebellum signal abnormalities, cerebellar volume reduction, and a high total cerebellum score ( P = 0.04, P < 0.001, P < 0.001, respectively). Conclusions AKI in the first 2 weeks of life is associated with brain insult, especially in the cerebellum. More well-designed studies are required to investigate the association and impact of AKI on the central nervous system. Graphical abstract A higher resolution version of the Graphical abstract is available as Supplementary information