Table 2.

Typical characteristics of acute kidney injury (AKI) in high- and low-income countries

Characteristics	AKI in high-income coutries	AKI in low-income and middle-income countries
Pattern of occurrence	Occurs predominantly in intensive care units	Occurs in health centers and hospitals in rural areas and large hospitals and intensive care units in large cities
Disease patterns	Associated with multiple organ failure	Often caused by a single disease; multiple organ failure less common
Associations	Associated with sepsis and complex surgery (major trauma, cardiovascular surgery)	Frequently associated with specific disease (e.g., diarrhea) and specific infection (e.g., malaria)
Mortality	High mortality	Same or lower mortality than in high-income countries
Populations affected	A disease of older adult populations	A disease of young, otherwise healthy people
Prevalence	Could be increasingly prevalent	Could be increasingly prevalent
Sufficiency of reporting	Accurately reported	Severely under-reported
Preventable status	Difficult to prevent	Preventable
Expense	Very expensive to treat	Very inexpensive to treat at early stages, too costly for most