Acute renal failure occurs in 1-25% of critically ill patients, with an associated mortality of 28 - 90%.
The RIFLE Criteria represent the first consensus definition of acute renal failure used to classify critically ill patients as to their kidney function. Notably, we use the worst possible classification according to the criteria, which measures either serum creatinine, urine output or both.
References
Rinaldo Bellomo1, Claudio Ronco, John A Kellum, Ravindra L Mehta, Paul Palevsky and the ADQI workgroup
Acute Renal Failure - definition, outcome measures, animal models, fluid therapy and information technology needs: The Second International Consensus Conference of the Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative (ADQI) Group.
Critical Care 2004, 8:R204-R212 (DOI 10.1186/cc2872)
This article is online at: http://ccforum.com/content/8/4/R204
