NPPB and acute kidney injury: Table 1 lists that the AKI patients had a significantly high incidence of sepsis, older age as well as high values for APACHE II, blood sugar, baseline SCr concentration, BNP, hs-CRP, CysC, IL-18, and serum and urinary NGAL. They also tended to have low ejection fraction, hemoglobulin (Hb) and serum albumin on CCU day 1 and elevated 6-month mortality (Fig. 1).