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.