KDIGO Clinical Practice Guideline for Acute Kidney Injury

Fourteen years on, the 2012 AKI guideline is still KDIGO's only published AKI document. It unified the RIFLE and AKIN definitions into the creatinine-and-urine-output staging that every trial since has used, and it built the prevention and management chapters — haemodynamic and glycaemic targets, the drugs not to give, contrast-associated AKI, and the timing, modality and dose of renal replacement therapy. Its successor, the KDIGO 2026 guideline on acute kidney injury and acute kidney disease (AKI/AKD), completed public review in May 2026 and is being finalised; until it appears, the 2012 text stands. Because most of the trials that now define AKI practice were published after 2012, they are listed in a separate section below rather than presented as evidence this guideline could have drawn on.

This guideline cites 2 of the 58 landmark trials in our Nephrology register.

Source

Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Acute Kidney Injury Work Group. Kidney Int Suppl. 2012;2(1):1–138. · Kidney International Supplements