Selection Process
Details of the flow of study identification are detailed in a Prisma
chart shown in Figure 1. Database searches yielded a total of 277
citations after removing duplicate citations. 256 irrelevant citations
were excluded based on abstract and title. After further assessment of
the full text of the remaining citations, 11 were excluded due to not
meeting the requirements of the selection criteria. These studies were
excluded for the following reasons: studies reported only on serum
creatine levels (n = 4), studies reported only on estimated glomerular
filtration rate (n=2), studies reported on outcomes other than the
incidence of acute kidney injury (n=2), studies reported on the usage of
NAC in comparison to other drugs (n=2), studies reported on the usage of
NAC with other drugs (n=1). Our analysis finally identified 10 eligible
studies comprising 1,242 patients (623 NAC group; 619 control group)
Characteristics of the included studies are summarized in Supplemental
Table 1.