Other findings
It is worth mentioning that one of the studies excluded, [21] also
showed a significant reduction in incidence of acute kidney injury when
carvedilol, a beta blocker, is administered with N-acetylcysteine (OR:
0.42, 95% CI: 0.23,0.79) However, it is likely that the main effect is
due to N-acetylcysteine, since there was a decreased incidence of acute
kidney injury in patients that were administered both N-acetylcysteine
and carvedilol as compared to patients that were only administered
carvedilol. More importantly, N-acetylcysteine was administered
perioperatively at high dosages, which further suggests that the NAC’s
effect on preventing renal failure is maximised when administered
perioperatively at high dosages.