Objective: In septic patients, decreased renal perfusion is considered to play a major role in
the pathogenesis of acute kidney injury. However, the accurate measurement of renal blood
flow in such patients is problematic and invasive. We sought to overcome such obstacles by
measuring renal blood flow in septic patients with acute kidney injury using cine phase-
contrast magnetic resonance imaging. Design: Pilot observational study. Setting: University-
affiliated general adult intensive care unit. Patients: Ten adult patients with established …

Sepsis is the most common precipitating factor in the development of in-hospital acute
kidney injury (AKI). Only a minority of renal biopsies show tubular necrosis, with sloughing
and tubular obstruction; the majority show minimal histological changes on light microscopy.
This led to the concept that sepsis-associated AKI was a type of vasomotor nephropathy,
due to loss of renal autoregulation with corresponding changes in global or regional
intrarenal blood flow. This concept was supported by clinical studies reporting improved …