Effects of Intensive Blood Pressure Treatment on Acute Kidney Injury Events in the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT)

Background Treating to a lower blood pressure (BP) may increase acute kidney injury (AKI) events. Study Design Data for AKI resulting in or during hospitalization or emergency department visits were collected as part of the serious adverse events reporting process of the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT). Setting & Participants 9,361 participants 50 years or older with 1 or more risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Interventions Participants were randomly assigned to a systolic BP target of  Outcomes & Measurements Primary outcome was the number of adjudicated AKI events. Secondary outcomes included severity of AKI and degree of recovery of kidney function after an AKI event. Baseline creatinine concentration was defined as the most recent SPRINT outpatient creatinine value before the date of the AKI event. Results There were 179 participants with AKI events in the intensive arm and 109 in the standard arm (3.8% vs 2.3%; HR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.30-2.10; P P =0.5). For participants with sufficient data, complete or partial resolution of AKI was seen for 169 (90.4%) and 9 (4.8%) of 187 AKI events in the intensive arm and 86 (86.9%) and 4 (4.0%) of 99 AKI events in the standard arm, respectively. Limitations Trial results are not generalizable to patients with diabetes mellitus or without risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Conclusions More intensive BP lowering resulted in more frequent episodes of AKI. Most cases were mild and most participants had complete recovery of kidney function. Trial Registration Registered at ClinicalTrials.gov with study number NCT01206062.