Remote Ischemic Preconditioning for the Prevention of Contrast-induced Acute Kidney Injury in Diabetic Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) is a significant iatrogenic complication of contrast media use associated with prolonged hospitalization, cardiovascular events, persistent kidney damage and increased risk of all-cause mortality. Diabetes with pre-existing renal disease can increase the risk of CI-AKI. Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) is a non-pharmacological strategy inducing transient episodes of ischemia by the occlusion of blood flow in non-target tissue such as a limb, before a subsequent prolonged ischemia-reperfusion injury occurs in a more distant organ. These brief, repeated ischemic episodes in the limb can confer a protection at more remote sites such as the heart, brain, lung, kidney, intestine or skeletal muscle. In a recent pilot study, using RIPC prior to coronary angiography in high risk patients with moderate chronic kidney disease, the authors found that RIPC significantly reduced the incidence of CI-AKI (Er et al Circulation. 2012;126(3),296). We hypothesized that RIPC would be protective as an adjunctive therapy in reducing the incidence of CI-AKI in diabetics with pre-existing CKD. This prospective study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of RIPC for the prevention of CI-AKI among diabetic nephropathy patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention.