Multiple agents have been studied to prevent radiocontrast nephropathy. One of these agents is N-Acetylcysteine. Previous trials to assess N-Acetylcysteine's efficacy in the prevention of contrast nephropathy have been promising. However, previous studies have limited applicability to the Emergency Department (ED) patient population for two reasons:
1) Many of the pretreatment strategies employed in these studies take several hours or even days to perform, which is not feasible in acutely ill ED patients.
2) Most of these studies were conducted in patients undergoing cardiac catheterization. This may be a very different population than patients in the ED undergoing abdominal or chest computed tomography.
The investigators wish to study the efficacy of N-acetylcysteine as an agent to prevent radiocontrast nephropathy in ED patients undergoing computerized tomography. The investigators propose a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial comparing saline hydration plus N-acetylcysteine versus saline hydration alone. The hypothesis of this study is that N-acetylcysteine with normal saline will be more effective than saline alone in the prevention of radiocontrast nephropathy.