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Background: Children admitted to intensive care with diabetic ketoacidosis are at risk of acute kidney injury. Recent UK guidelines recommends against restricted fluid provision due to a theoretical risk of kidney injury. To date no data has been published that documents this risk in an intensive care cohort.

Aims: To describe the natural history of acute kidney injury in patients admitted with diabetic ketoacidosis in whom a restrictive fluid regime was provided.

Methods: Retrospective analysis, within a UK Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Between January 2011 and December 2020 219 patients were referred to the South Thames Retrieval Service with Diabetic Ketoacidosis, of whom 52 were admitted to Evelina PIC. 49 of these records were complete and used for analysis of acute kidney injury stage using Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes criteria measured by serial creatinine. Clinical outcome at discharge from Pediatric Intensive Care was also recorded.

Results: 19 out of 49 (38%) patients had acute kidney injury (17 present on admission to pediatric intensive care). Three patients required renal replacement therapy though all of them went on to re-establish their baseline renal function. This compares favourably to published data documenting an acute kidney injury incidence of 43-64% in general paediatric and pediatric intensive care cohorts.

Conclusion: In the context of diabetic ketoacidosis, use of a restrictive fluid regime was not associated with higher levels of acute kidney injury than other studies and renal function recovery was observed in all patients followed up.