Various COVID-19-related effects that are thought to contribute to AKI include kidney tubular injury (acute tubular necrosis) with septic shock, microinflammation, increased blood clotting, and probable direct infection of the kidney. Most patients with COVID-19-related AKI who recover continue to have low kidney function after discharge from the hospital.
A recent study from 2019 conducted between March 11th and April 26th has shown that people hospitalised with COVID-19 have a significantly higher risk of getting acute kidney injury (AKI), which can lead to multiple complications and in some cases death. The study showed that COVID-19 patients were twice as likely to develop AKI as compared to other patients who did not contract COVID-19. The study further concluded that AKI appears to be a marker of COVID-19 infection severity and the mortality rate is higher for these patients. The complication affiliated with COVID-19 that has increased the number for patients suffering from AKI includes kidney tubular injury (acute tubular necrosis) with septic shock, microinflammation, increased blood clotting, and probable direct infection of the kidney. The patients who contracted COVID-19 and had AKI related complications were shown to have continuous kidney function complications after leaving the hospital.
Long term implications of acute kidney injury
COVID-19 patients might encounter long term implications of AKI therefore they are recommended to regularly get checkups due to the risk of developing chronic kidney diseases. This is also the case for patients who did not have AKI but who had blood and/or protein in their urine, since they have an increased risk of developing chronic- and end-stage-kidney diseases.
Kidney failure in otherwise healthy adults
There Usually AKI is significantly more prominent in older adults, however reports of nonelderly adults infected with COVID-19 developing AKI has surfaced. The notable takeaway from this report is that these adults did not have any underlying medical conditions. With proper treatment AKI can be reversed, which is the goal for us at AKI Therapeutics.
Further information
For the full journal please visit the reference below:
Fisher, M., Neugarten, J., Bellin, E., Yunes, M., Stahl, L., Johns, T.S., Abramowitz, M.K., Levy, R., Kumar, N., Mokrzycki, M.H., Coco, M., Dominguez, M., Prudhvi, K. and Golestaneh, L. (2020). AKI in Hospitalized Patients with and without COVID-19: A Comparison Study. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 31(9), pp. 2145–2157.
