Ischemic conditioning strategies for kidneys protection: From experimental findings to clinical application

Prevention of acute kidney injury (AKI) in high-risk patients following medical interventions is one of the most frequent challenges in clinical situations. Ischemia-reperfusion injury is known to be a major cause of AKI in human. So far, many studies have been performed on ischemia-reperfusion- induced AKI to develop interventions that may prevent or minimize this type of injury. Ischemic conditioning strategies are one of the most potent of these methods which comprise local and remote ischemic pre-conditioning, local and remote ischemic post-conditioning and remote ischemic per-conditioning. These simple and easily applicable techniques result in protection against ischemia-reperfusion injury in many organs including the kidneys by relatively unknown mechanisms. In this review, we discuss about the role of ischemic conditioning strategies in reducing kidney damage following ischemia-reperfusion injury.