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Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Coronavirus may cause acute kidney damage

It was already obvious that 
if COVID-19 led to pneumonia,
and hospitalization, you were
likely to have some permanent
lung damage.

New information suggests 
COVID-19 may cause 
acute kidney damage too,
in roughly one third of 
hospital cases.

Another reason for retired
people, and others over 65,
to be concerned.

New data are from 
two health systems 
in New York City.

The hospitals struggled 
to keep up with dialysis 
demands as they were 
flooded with COVID-19 patients,
with a high rate of acute kidney 
injury (AKI) among infected 
patients.

In the first 1,000 patients 
with COVID-19 at NewYork-
Presbyterian/Columbia 
University Irving Medical 
Center, 33.9% developed 
acute kidney injury (AKI). 

Of the 236 
who ended up
in the ICU, 78% 
developed AKI, 
Ruijun Chen, MD, 
and colleagues 
reported.

In another study of 5,500
patients the rate was 36% 
of those hospitalized, 
and 89% of those in ICU 
on ventilators -- quite a few 
of these people died, so they 
won't be in need of dialysis 
or further care. 

But some COVID-19 survivors 
will need ongoing care and 
won’t be able to work at 
their former level.

Doctors are not sure 
if the kidney injury is from 
the virus or a side effect 
of the treatments. 

Any disease involving 
mass clotting could cause 
damage in most organs, 
some of which can be 
repaired, but some
will cause scarring that 
may be permanent. 

“Nothing like this 
has ever been seen 
in terms of the number 
of people needing kidney 
replacement therapy,”  
said Dr. David S. Goldfarb, 
chief of nephrology at the
New York campus of the 
New York Harbor VA 
Health Care System.