#1799 Liver affliction among women with pregnancy-related acute kidney injury and its impact on fetal and maternal outcome
Authors: Nagy Eman , Younis Dalia , Abozeid Fatma , Gaber Tamer , Shemies Rasha Samir 
Published: May 2024

Background and Aims

Pregnancy-related acute kidney injury (PR-AKI) is a worldwide health challenge that is accompanied by an increased risk of morbidity and mortality in both the mother and the fetus. PR-AKI occurs due to several causes including prerenal (hemorrhage, sepsis, hypovolemia, etc), postrenal and intrinsic renal causes (renal cortical necrosis, acute tubular necrosis, thrombotic microangiopathy [TMA], hemolysis elevated liver enzymes, low platelet count (HELLP) syndrome, preeclampsia/eclampsia, acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP), glomerulonephritis [GN], etc). Hepatic affection in the context of PR-AKI may further compromise the detrimental maternal and fetal outcomes, however this seldom has been studied. Thus, this study aimed to explore the incidence of liver affliction in women with PR-AKI and to investigate its effect on the maternal and fetal outcome.

Method

This three-year retrospective study included women who presented to Mansoura Nephrology and Dialysis Unit with severe PR-AKI. Patients with stage I, II AKI admitted to obstetric departments were not included in the study. Patients with incomplete data were excluded from the study. The routine laboratory data and fetal and maternal outcomes were obtained from the medical records.

Results

The study included 77 women with PR-AKI, the mean maternal age was 28 with a minimum of 19 and maximum of 43 years. Twelve patients had hypertension while none of them had diabetes. The causes of PR-AKI are displayed in Fig. 1. Thirty-one patients (40.3%) had liver affliction. Six of them were due to HELLP, three due to underlying liver cirrhosis, one due to AFLP, the remaining cases showed abnormally elevated liver enzymes. White blood cells and INR were significantly higher among women with liver affliction than those without (P = 0.023, 0.003, respectively), while platelets were significantly lower in women with liver affliction (P = 0.002). Patients with liver affliction showed significantly higher median alanine transaminase (99 vs 27) and aspartate transaminase (103 vs 23) than those without (P &lt; 0.001 for both). On the other hand, there were no statistically significant differences between patients with and without liver affliction as regard blood hemoglobin, serum creatinine, quantitative proteinuria, bicarbonate, and gestational age at termination of pregnancy. The studied women with liver affliction experienced lower percentage of renal recovery compared to those without but with no statistical significance (54.8%vs72.5%, P = 0.122). Maternal mortality was significantly more among patients with liver affliction compared to those without (32.3% vs 9.8%, P = 0.017). On the other hand, there was no significant difference between patients with and without liver affection regarding fetal outcome (live birth 55.2% vs 55.6%, P = 0.975) (Table 1).

Conclusion

Liver affliction is not uncommon problem among women with PR-AKI and it is associated with higher maternal mortality and lower rates of renal recovery.