Background: We aimed to represent the effects of SARS Co V -2 on kidney functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic in patients of varied baseline GFR values staged into renal categories of one to five.
Methods: We conducted a single-center, retrospective study using data of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 with acute kidney injuries. Demographic characteristics, clinical findings, laboratory parameters [glomerular filtration rate (GFR), Creatinine, Blood urea nitrogen (BUN)] of pre covid, during covid, post-COVID infection, were reviewed. Predicted changes in the GFR were analyzed. The study’s primary outcome was a predicted decline in GFR observed during the covid infection period compared to pre covid. The secondary outcome was predicted improvement in GFR after resolution of infection or covid -19 tested negative.
Results: The study included one hundred patients (mean age: 57.35+/- 17.5 years). The odds ratio of multivariate logistic regression analysis shows the association of kidney functioning during the pre-covid period with an odds ratio of 1.699 (95% CI- 1.299 to 2.551), during COVID with an odds ratio of 0.5404 (95% CI- 0.3620 to 0.7025), and post-covid with an odds ratio of 0.98 (CI- 0.9646 to 1.000). A decrease in GFR from Pre-COVID to during-COVID was observed with the estimated odds ratio of 1.001 (CI-0.9999 to 1.002, z- value 1.795, p-value-< 0.001). The positive and negative predictive powers were 92.86% and 96.67%, respectively. An association of an improvement in GFR was observed during the post-covid infection period with an odds ratio of 0.999 (CI-0.99-1.002, p-value-0.79). Indeed, the average decrease in GFR was prominent in second renal category patients, and the white race showed a 75% mortality rate, 14% in African Americans, and 11% in other races.
Conclusions: COVID-19 can cause acute ischemic kidney injury. Patients with CKD stage 3A are most affected. Patients who had longer lengths of stay in the hospital had greater severity of acute kidney injury. We found a higher mortality ratio in patients assigned to renal categories 2 and 3.