Acute Kidney Injury and Patients Undergoing Both Right and Left Heart Catheterization with Coronary Angiography Versus Right Heart Catheterization Only

Background Recent studies have challenged the reported causal association between acute kidney injury and iodinated contrast administration, ascribing some cases to changes in renal function that are independent of contrast administration. Methods and Results We studied 1779 consecutive patients undergoing right heart catheterization (RHC) at a Veterans Administration Medical Center. We compared the incidence of acute kidney injury and of nephropathy at 3 months in veterans undergoing right and left heart catheterization and coronary angiography (R&LHC) to the incidence of acute kidney injury and of nephropathy at 3 months in patients undergoing RHC only. The incidence of acute kidney injury at 3 days was 47 (9.7%) in the R&LHC group and 58 (9.6%) in the RHC group (P=0.99). The incidence of nephropathy at 3 months was 115 (17%) in the L&RHC group and 141 (19.2%) in the RHC group (P=0.31). In a propensity score-paired analysis of 782 patients and after adjustment for baseline characteristics, the odds ratio (OR) for acute kidney injury at 3 days among patients undergoing R&LHC was 1.25 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.65, 2.42; P=0.50) and the OR for nephropathy at 3 months was (0.69; 95% CI 0.46, 1.04; P=0.08). Conclusion The incidence of changes in creatinine consistent with acute kidney injury at 3 days and of nephropathy at 3 months was not significantly different in patients undergoing R&LHC compared to patients undergoing RHC only. This supports the thesis that not all changes in creatinine after procedures involving administration of contrast are caused by the contrast.