Understanding on the pathogenesis of severe acute pancreatitis-associated AKI

Clinical harm of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) arises from systematic inflammation resulting from local pancreatic inflammation. Patients with SAP have a very high mortality, with most cases of death resulting from complications involving the failure of organs other than the pancreas. Once onset of SAP occurs, clinical manifestations in patients will deteriorate continually, so that the levels of injury to the other organs surpass the severity of the pancreatic lesion, even causing multiple organ insufficiency, and, ultimately, death. In clinical practice, organ insufficiency may be manifested as shock, acute respiratory failure, acute renal failure, among others. The acute kidney injury caused by SAP is able to not only aggravate the state of pancreatitis, but also develop into renal failure and elevate mortality in those patients. This paper tries to explore the pathogenesis of acute kidney injury caused by SAP.