Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is an important complication in ICU patients. It has a high incidence: 5 to 10 % of patients are treated with renal replacement therapy, and up to 2/3rd of ICU patients have at least a mild form of AKI. Also, AKI is associated with increased in-hospital death. Epidemiologic data on AKI using latest definitions are however lacking. RIFLE is a recent developed consensus classification for Acute Kidney Injury and was accepted by the major nephrological and critical care societies. Therefore, the RIFLE classification offers an excellent tool to gather epidemiologic information on Acute Kidney Injury. Management of early AKI is highly variable around the world and little data exist on the use therapies and the timing of renal replacement. This information is critical for the planning of future interventional trials and to understand the size of this problem.The AKI-EPI trial is a worldwide collaborative trial on the epidemiology of AKI in ICU patients. Data entry for the trial will be minimal, in return you will get AKI staging of your patients, additional information on severity of illness, mortality prediction (SAPS 3 and SOFA scores), and comparison of your patient population to the whole study cohort. The online AKI tool will be available for further use by participating centers for e.g. benchmarking. The trial will be conducted under the auspices of the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN).

The steering committee:
Eric Hoste, Gent, Belgium (chair)
John Kellum, Pittsburgh, USA
Claudio Ronco, Vicenza, Italy
Rinaldo Bellomo, Melbourne, Australia
Ravindra Mehta, San Diego, USA
Michael Joannides, Innsbruck, Austria
Paul Palevsky, Pittsburgh, USA
Shigehiko Uchino, Tokyo, Japan