“Over 50% of hospitalized patients with Covid-19 have developed acute kidney injury. The profile of patients at risk for acute kidney injury (AKI) is elderly males with comorbidities. 30/40% of those who contracted the infection developed kidney damage ”in summary, these are the alarms launched by the SIN, the Italian Society of Nephrology on the first day of the Rimini symposium.
So not only greater infectivity and mortality in renal patients, but kidney damage triggered by SARS-CoV2 infection in the healthy population.
But what are the problems related to kidney damage from Covid-19? What are the long-term risks?
These questions were answered today by the SIN – SIMIT Symposium (Italian Society of Nephrology – Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases) on the Covid-19 epidemic in the 62nd Congress of the Italian Nephrology Society.
A moment to take stock of the impact the disease has had not only in dialysis and transplant patients, but also in the general population and, from a completely reversed perspective, on renal impairment caused by SARS-CoV2.
If, on the one hand, renal patients are infected for more than 20% more than the general population, with a mortality 10 times higher, on the other hand, the first evidence shows a percentage between 30 and 40 of people who contracted SARS-CoV2 infection and developed kidney damage of varying degrees and intensity.
Although Covid-19 mainly affects the lung system, the kidney is one of the main target organs. “We cannot ignore the clinical impact it has had on kidney health, with an onset of over 50% of acute kidney damage in the Covid-19 disease phase in hospitalized patients and higher post-acute risks the more severe it was the infection. Nonetheless, post-acute renal outcomes are evident even in cases where the acute disease was not so severe as to require hospitalization “commented Piergiorgio Messa, President of SIN and Director of the Complex Operational Unit of Nephrology, Dialysis and Renal Transplant at the Polyclinic of Milan and Full Professor of Nephrology at the University of Milan.
On average, the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI – Acute Kidney Injury) in patients with Covid-19 was 20.4%, and this is the alarming figure that emerges from 17 studies involving over 18 thousand patients in Italy. Among the factors associated with the onset of AKI: elderly (over 70) and male sex, but also the presence of comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, neoplasia.
“The onset of AKI – explained Messa – has increased hospitalizations in intensive care and the probability of death, with a severity of kidney damage that went hand in hand with the severity of the Covid-19 infection”.
What seemed important to everyone is to think and design effective management protocols for future pandemics.
Strengthened by the experience and timeliness with which the SIN managed the emergency phase and carried out the battle for vaccination priority, the scientific community of Italian nephrologists is sensitized and ready to work in this direction, in order to protect renal patients, fragile par excellence and not very responsive to classic vaccination schemes.