A multi-center retrospective cohort study defines the spectrum of kidney pathology in Coronavirus 2019 Disease (COVID-19) Article

Full Text via DOI: 10.1016/j.kint.2021.07.015 Web of Science: 000722435300023
International Collaboration

Cited authors

  • May RM, Cassol C, Hannoudi A, Larsen CP, Lerma EV, Haun RS, Braga JR, Hassen SI, Wilson J, VanBeek C, Vankalakunti M, Barnum L, Walker PD, Bourne TD, Messias NC, Ambruzs JM, Boils CL, Sharma SS, Cossey LN, Baxi PV, Palmer M, Zuckerman JE, Walavalkar V, Urisman A, Gallan AJ, Al-Rabadi LF, Rodby R, Luyckx V, Espino G, Santhana-Krishnan S, Alper B, Lam SG, Hannoudi GN, Matthew D, Belz M, Singer G, Kunaparaju S, Price D, Chawla S, Rondla C, Abdalla MA, Britton ML, Paul S, Ranjit U, Bichu P, Williamson SR, Sharma Y, Gaspert A, Grosse P, Meyer I, Vasudev B, El Kassem M, Velez JCQ, Caza TN

Abstract

  • Kidney failure is common in patients with Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19), resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. In an international collaboration, 284 kidney biopsies were evaluated to improve understanding of kidney disease in COVID-19. Diagnoses were compared to five years of 63,575 native biopsies prior to the pandemic and 13,955 allograft biopsies to identify diseases that have increased in patients with COVID-19. Genotyping for APOL1 G1 and G2 alleles was performed in 107 African American and Hispanic patients. Immunohistochemistry for SARS-CoV-2 was utilized to assess direct viral infection in 273 cases along with clinical information at the time of biopsy. The leading indication for native biopsy was acute kidney injury (45.4%), followed by proteinuria with or without concurrent acute kidney injury (42.6%). There were more African American patients (44.6%) than patients of other ethnicities. The most common diagnosis in native biopsies was collapsing glomerulopathy (25.8%), which was associated with highrisk APOL1 genotypes in 91.7% of cases. Compared to the five-year biopsy database, the frequency of myoglobin cast nephropathy and proliferative glomerulonephritis with monoclonal IgG deposits was also increased in patients with COVID-19 (3.3% and 1.7%, respectively), while there was a reduced frequency of chronic conditions (including diabetes mellitus, IgA nephropathy, and arterionephrosclerosis) as the primary diagnosis. In transplants, the leading indication was acute kidney injury (86.4%), for which rejection was the predominant diagnosis (61.4%). Direct SARS-CoV-2 viral infection was not identified. Thus, our multi-center large case series identified kidney diseases that disproportionately affect patients with COVID-19 and demonstrated a high frequency of APOL1 high-risk genotypes within this group, with no evidence of direct viral infection within the kidney.

Authors

Publication date

  • 2021

Published in

Category

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0085-2538

Number of pages

  • 13

Start page

  • 1303

End page

  • 1315

Volume

  • 100

Issue

  • 6