Preoperative dapagliflozin use and cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury: A single-center retrospective cohort study.

Background: No drug has been shown to be effective in preventing cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury (CSA-AKI). In different clinical settings, sodium-glucose transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors confer renal protection and may be promising drug candidates. We examined the association between preoperative dapagliflozin use and the incidence and prognosis of CSA-AKI.

Materials and methods: Data were obtained for consecutive patients undergoing cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass between December 2020 and November 2022 at a large teaching hospital in Eastern China. The exposure was preoperative dapagliflozin use, and the primary outcome was the incidence of AKI within seven days following cardiac surgery. The secondary outcomes included dialysis, death, AKI recovery, and length of hospitalization. The association between the exposures and outcomes was determined by various logistic regression models with propensity scores.

Results: A total of 1,424 patients were included, of which 201 (14.1%) received dapagliflozin preoperatively, and 321 (22.5%) developed CSA-AKI. Patients with dapagliflozin use developed CSA-AKI more frequently than those without (32.3 vs. 20.9%, unadjusted odds ratio 1.81; 95% CI, 1.30 - 2.50). However, the association became non-significant in the multivariate model (adjusted odds ratio, 1.11; 95% CI, 0.73 - 1.68), in the adjusted model with inverse probability weighting (odds ratio, 1.21; 95% CI, 0.76 - 1.93), or in the propensity-score-matched model (odds ratio, 1.09, 95% CI, 0.68 - 1.73). Furthermore, there was no significant association between preoperative dapagliflozin use and secondary outcomes.

Conclusion: Results from this study suggest that preoperative dapagliflozin use was not associated with a lower risk of CSA-AKI.