# Artificial Intelligence to Predict Outcomes in Patients with Acute Kidney Injury on Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy

> **NIH NIH R56** · UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY · 2020 · $100,000

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Acute kidney injury (AKI) affects up to half of critically ill patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU). In patients
with AKI and hemodynamic instability, continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) is the preferred dialysis
modality for solute and volume control. ICU mortality in this vulnerable population is high (~75%) but kidney
recovery occurs in up to two-thirds of survivors. Fluid overload is a potentially modifiable risk factor associated
with these outcomes. However, there are currently no universally accepted approaches for predicting kidney
recovery, survival or individual response to fluid removal during CRRT. Due to recent advances in computer
science and widespread big data usage, deep learning (DL) has emerged as a valuable approach. DL allows
construction of risk prediction models using time-series data that incorporate thousands of variables and dynamic
changes in these variables derived from multi-dimensional sources and not only static values of these variables.
We propose to develop and validate innovative DL approaches to dynamically predict these outcomes using
multi-modal data from electronic health records and CRRT machines. We demonstrated superiority of DL models
without a-priori variable selection compared to optimized logistic regression (C-Statistic of 0.72 vs. 0.62) for
prediction of RRT liberation. We also showed that mortality prediction improved by incorporating changes in
clinical data within 6-hour intervals after CRRT initiation. In addition, we identified distinctive mortality risk
according to quintiles of achieved net ultrafiltration rates, after adjustment by patient’s weight, duration of CRRT,
and other clinical parameters: OR 8.0 (95% CI: 2.7-25.1) when the highest quintile (>36 ml/kg/day) was
compared to the lowest quintile (<13 ml/kg/day). We hypothesize that innovative DL approaches integrating time-
series data will generate accurate and generalizable risk prediction models that can impact CRRT delivery. We
will utilize a multi-institutional dataset that encompasses clinical data and CRRT programmatic and therapy data
(CRRTnet registry, n=1500 patients) for model development and an independent multi-institutional dataset for
validation (n=1500 patients) to: 1) continuously predict short-term (7-day) and medium-term (28-day) liberation
from RRT due to kidney recovery; 2) continuously predict 24-hour mortality; and 3) identify and validate sub-
phenotypes of patients with AKI on CRRT with differing achieved net ultrafiltration rates. This innovative research
will assist 1) the development of novel clinical decision support platforms for guiding informed CRRT delivery
and promoting kidney recovery; 2) the identification of sub-phenotypes of patients that can benefit from precision-
medicine approaches to fluid removal during CRRT; and 3) the design of interventional studies focusing on fluid
removal during CRRT to impact patient-centered outcomes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10261059
- **Project number:** 1R56DK126930-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
- **Principal Investigator:** Girish Nitin Nadkarni
- **Activity code:** R56 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $100,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-19 → 2021-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10261059

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10261059, Artificial Intelligence to Predict Outcomes in Patients with Acute Kidney Injury on Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (1R56DK126930-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10261059. Licensed CC0.

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