Acute renal failure in Eastern India

The present study included 426 patients with acute renal failureage range 7 months to 85 years, during 8-year period (1984–1992).Medical, surgical and obstetric causes were responsible forARF in 68.3, 17.8, and 14% of cases respectively. The main aetiologicalfactors encountered were volume depletion secondary to gastrointestinalfluid loss (35.2%), acute glomerulonephritis (10.3%), nephrotoxin(8.6%), falciparum malaria (4.2%), obstructive uropathy (13%),post-abortal (10.5%), and miscellaneous factors (1.4%) of patients.The overall mortality was 19.2%. Thus our observation revealedthat diarrhoeal diseases (35.2%), obstructive uropathy (13.3%),and septic abortion (10.5%) were the main causes for ARF inmedical, surgical, and obstetric groups respectively. In contrastto our studies, acute renal failure associated with diarrhoealdiseases, septicaemia, falciparum malaria and septic abortionare rare in European countries.