How to evaluate acute kidney injury in the kidney transplant patient?
When deciding the baseline kidney function and using the serum creatinine (Scr), the clinician must be careful. The ideal baseline Scr is based on the most recent trend when the patient was in a steady state. Time after transplantation is also critical in sorting through the differential diagnosis of AKI. The differential changes when the patient is a recent transplant and could have surgical complications, such as a urine leak in the first few months as opposed to a patient several years after transplant in whom that is less likely.