Infographic: Practice Patterns and Outcomes of Hemodialysis in Infants Undergoing Congenital Heart Surgery in the United States

Abstract

Hemodialysis after infant congenital heart surgery (CHS) for acute kidney injury (AKI) presents a major challenge due to relatively low utilization, difficult vascular access and small patient size. Therefore, we performed a multi-institutional analysis for infants requiring hemodialysis post-CHS. The Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) was queried for infants undergoing CHS from 2004 to 2024. Intermittent hemodialysis (iHD) and continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) were included, patients undergoing pre-CHS dialysis or post-CHS peritoneal dialysis during admission were excluded. High HD use centers were in the top 10% of HD usage while low HD use centers were all other centers. After CHS, 1% (332/31,634) of infants received a form of hemodialysis (HD); 61% (204/332) received CRRT, 11% (37/332) received iHD, 11% (36/332) received both, and 17% (55/332) had an unknown type. HD was provided in 2% (220/12,898) of neonates (< 31days-old at CHS) vs. 1% (112/18,736) of infants 31-365 days old (p < 0.001). One-year survival was lower in the dialysis vs. non-dialysis cohort (46% vs. 94%, p < 0.0001). CRRT patients had higher one-year survival vs. iHD (50% vs. 25%, weighted log-rank; p = 0.01), although there was no difference after adjustment upon multivariate analysis. HD infants at high HD use centers had improved hospital and 1-year survival vs. low HD use (66% vs. 23%; 67% vs. 28%, p < 0.0001). Infants requiring hemodialysis (iHD or CRRT) post-CHS suffer from poor outcomes with < 50% 1-year survival, with high HD use centers having triple the hospital survival and double the 1-year survival, suggesting modifiable factors may mitigate poor outcomes.