COVID-19 survivors at risk of developing kidney dysfunction and disease, says study

As the deadly second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic created havoc, many after-effects also emerged from it. COVID-19 affects different people in different ways - from blood clots, stroke, diabetes, and breathing difficulties to heart, and liver damage, depression, anxiety and memory loss. The latest in this list is kidney damage of COVID-19 survivors.

A large number of COVID-19 survivors have been afflicted with kidney damage, a recent study found. Kidney dysfunction and disease are known as the silent killer because it tends to be free of pain and other symptoms. The National Kidney Foundation estimates that 90% of people with ailing kidneys don't know about it. 

As per the latest study published online on September 1 in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, injury to the blood-filtering organ can occur among people who recover from the disease at home and escalates with the severity of COVID-19.

Even non-hospitalised patients with no renal problems have almost a twofold higher risk of developing end-stage kidney disease, compared with someone who never had COVID-19, the study revealed. The data shows 7.8 extra people needing dialysis or a kidney transplant per 10,000 of these mild-to-moderate COVID-19 patients.

The research and its outcome

A controlled dataset was created that included health information from more than 1.7 million healthy and COVID-19 infected people from March 1, 2020, through March 15, 2021.

Of them, 89,216 had confirmed COVID-19 diagnosed and made it through the acute phase (the first 30 days of the disease).

The study found non-hospitalised COVID-19 patients have a 23% increased risk of suffering acute kidney injury within six months.

The COVID-19 patients who were analysed in this research study were mostly men in their late 60s.

Researchers also analysed data of 151,289 women including 8,817 with COVID-19 and adults of all ages.

Among the COVID-19 patients, 12,376 (13.9%) required hospitalisation, including 4,146 (4.6%) who were admitted to intensive care units (ICUs).

The risk of decreased kidney function is highest among people who were in the ICU but the risk extends to even those who had milder cases of COVID-19.

Patients who did not need to be hospitalised had a 15% higher risk of suffering from a major adverse kidney event such as chronic kidney disease.

They had a 30% higher risk of developing acute kidney injury, and a 215% (more than twofold) higher risk of acquiring end-stage kidney disease.

The latter occurs when the kidneys can no longer effectively remove waste from the body and dialysis or a kidney transplant is needed to keep patients alive.

The risk increased for patients hospitalised for COVID-19, and considerably so for those who were in the ICU for the virus.

They had seven times the risk of experiencing a major adverse kidney event, eight times the risk of acute kidney injury, and 13 times the risk of end-stage kidney disease.