In a new study, researchers found that acute kidney injury in patients with COVID-19 is linked to a much higher risk for in-hospital death.
Acute kidney injury is a condition in which the kidneys suddenly can’t filter waste from the blood.
The research was conducted by a team from the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Great Neck, New York.
The team assessed survival and kidney outcomes in 9,657 adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at 13 hospitals in metropolitan New York between March 1, 2020, and April 27, 2020.
The researchers found that the acute kidney injury rate was 38.4 per 1,000 patient-days.
The incidence rate of in-hospital death among patients without acute kidney injury was 10.8 per 1,000 patient-days versus 31.1 for patients with acute kidney injury not requiring kidney replacement therapy and 37.5 for patients with acute kidney injury receiving kidney replacement therapy.
The risk of in-hospital death was higher for patients with acute kidney injury versus those without acute kidney injury.
This risk for death remained higher among those with acute kidney injury versus those without AKI, after adjusting for demographics, comorbidities, and illness severity.
For surviving patients with acute kidney injury and no therapy, 74.1% achieved kidney recovery by the time of discharge, whereas among survivors with therapy, 30.6 percent remained on dialysis at discharge.
The team also found that chronic kidney disease was the only independent risk factor linked to needing dialysis at discharge.
The researchers say that regardless of the need for dialysis or kidney recovery at discharge, COVID-19 patients who experience any form of acute kidney injury should probably be followed closely to assess ongoing kidney function.
One author of the study is Kenar D. Jhaveri, MD.
The study is published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
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