The evolving landscape of acute kidney injury: research directions and changes in clinical practice

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common and serious disease, needing a comprehensive and management-based approach. While traditional practice focused on management after occurrence, recent practice is expanding its focus to prevention and novel therapeutic strategies, using new discoveries in AKI research. New biomarkers have been approved along with therapeutic agents, which target different pathophysiological pathways of AKI. In this review, we first summarize the current understanding of AKI definition and epidemiology, including global disparities and recent changes related to pandemics. Next, we highlight recent research directions regarding biomarkers, therapeutic agents, continuous renal replacement therapy, digital healthcare and artificial intelligence, and global collaborations. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive view of the direction in which AKI research is heading and link these areas to changes that are happening in clinical practice, with a goal to push innovative research accomplishments.