The incidence and pathogenesis of acute renal failure following cardiac surgery, and strategies for its prevention.

Renal dysfunction following cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) causes significant morbidity and mortality. There has been much research into possible methods of reducing renal damage, but much promising laboratory work has failed to live up to expectations in the clinical arena, such that there is no widely accepted renal protection strategy for cardiac surgical patients. Part of the difficulty is that there is no standardized definition of renal dysfunction, and there are a limited number of good quality randomised controlled clinical trials.