Acute Kidney Failure Health Center

The cause of acute kidney failure comes from acute kidney injury or AKI. This usually occurs when direct injury or impact affects the body's kidneys. Losing a lot of blood can cause sudden kidney failure as well as certain drugs or poisons. These cause sudden drops in kidney function.

The word acute refers to conditions that happen suddenly and last a short time. Acute is the opposite of chronic which refers to long lasting conditions. Acute kidney injury is the sudden and temporary loss of kidney function. Typically, acute kidney failure occurs in three settings: loss of blood flow to the kidneys (from blood loss, low blood pressure from heart failure or hardening of the renal arteries and blood clots), damage to the kidney tissue (from medications, infections or poisons), and obstruction of urine flow (from enlarged prostate, urinary stones, bladder cancers or an obstruction of the urethra).

When acute kidney failure occurs, the kidneys are suddenly unable to filter the blood of unnecessary wastes and therefore becomes unable to maintain the body's fluid and electrolyte balance. A build up of wastes occurs as the kidneys are unable to push them out into the bladder to be disposed of through urination.