Impact of Early versus Late Initiation of Renal Replacement Therapy in Patients with Cardiac Surgery-Associated Acute Kidney Injury: Meta-Analysis with Trial Sequential Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Figure 7

Trial sequential analysis for mortality in randomized controlled trials: a relative risk of 0.61, two-sided boundary, incidence of 42.6% in late RRT, incidence of 36.8% in early RRT, a low bias estimated relative risk reduction of 80%, α of 5%, and power of 80% were set. There is an estimated required information size (RIS) of 2162 randomized patients that are not reached. The boundaries for benefit are not crossed and no effect on mortality is observed; the Z-curve is parallel to the boundary of the early RRT.