• Petar Kes, Dragan Ljutić, Nikolina Basić-Jukić, and Bruna Brunetta.
• Zavod za dijalizu, Klinicki bolnicki centar Zagreb, Kispatićeva 12 10000 Zagreb, Hrvatska.
• Acta Med Croatica. 2003 Jan 1;57(1):71-5.

AbstractOne of the most important achievements in the contemporary intensive care management is introduction of continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). The most common indications for CRRT are acute renal failure complicated with heart failure, volume overload, hypercatabolism, acute or chronic liver failure, and/or brain swelling. Less common indications include systemic inflammatory response (SIRS), sepsis, multiorgan failure (MOF), adult respiratory distress syndrome, crush syndrome, tumor lysis syndrome, lactacidosis, and chronic heart failure. Methods of CRRT could be used during or after open heart operations, heart, lung or/and liver transplantation in adults and children. Modern approach to treatment of acute renal failure introduces dialysis early in the course of disease in order to avoid complications on other organs. Sepsis, SIRS and septic shock are still major therapeutic problems in intensive care units with a mortality rate over 50%. Numerous uncontrolled and several controlled clinical studies have demonstrated that CRRT could remove inflammatory substances including cytokines, activated components of the complement, and derivatives of the arachidonic acid. Hemodynamic stability and gas exchange in the lungs were significantly improved. These is due not only to removal of inflammatory substances but also to other nonspecific hemodynamic effects (control of body temperature, fluid and metabolic balance). Besides the convection, cytokines could be removed from the plasma with adsorption on the membrane of dialyzer or hemofilter. Prophylactic use of CCRT in patients with normal renal function, without disturbances in fluid excretion and with normal hemodynamics is still controversial, while the possible benefit is not higher than the risks of invasive therapeutic method, and there is no evidence that prophylactic CCRT could prevent development of acute renal failure in these patients. However, current knowledge of MOF pathophysiology justifies the use of CRRT in patients with signs of heart failure, disturbances in metabolic and fluid homeostasis and sepsis, and in patients with the risk of developing acute respiratory failure or MOF, despite the mild impairment of renal function according to laboratory results.

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