Around the world, constant investigations are carried out on Covid-19. It is not only seeking to design new drugs but also to better understand how it develops within the body and all the damage it causes. Precisely one of the most recent studies identified that acute kidney failure related to this new disease acts in a similar way to kidney damage caused by sepsis. While the immune reaction produced by the infection plays a fundamental role.
Innovative work on the subject
The results of this research have just been published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings and suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction, or loss of functionality in cellular energy production, is often present in kidney damage related to Covid-19.
Dr. Mariam Alexander, a renal pathologist at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study, mentions that more than 33 percent of hospitalized patients report acute kidney failure data and, according to studies published last year, sudden kidney failure is a factor. risk for mortality within the hospital.
“These results suggest that Covid-19 can induce a strong immune reaction in patients, which contributes to kidney damage and, in these patients, treatments to help the kidney must be started soon. Our data point towards mitochondrial injury as a possible target for therapies, some of which were recently developed and tested in preclinical models ”.
The severity of Covid-19 is known to be related to a systemic inflammatory reaction, as well as inflammation in the heart and lungs. However, there are few studies on the immune reaction in the kidneys and molecular studies on the renal pathology of infected patients are also scarce.
What did the investigation consist of?
The Mayo Clinic study evaluated the kidneys of 17 adults who died from Covid-19 and who had an autopsy. The researchers described the pathological range of infection-related kidney failure and characterized its molecular profile to compare it with that of sepsis-related failure.
The study says that the morphological and molecular profile of severe kidney failure due to Covid-19 resembles that of sepsis, both in microvascular dysfunction and in inflammation and metabolic reprogramming.
“The acute renal failure observed in Covid-19 is probably secondary to the activation of the immune system, which is similar to that observed in patients with sepsis. The kidneys in Covid-19 become inflamed and show a faster rate of cell death and much more mitochondrial damage, compared to kidneys that suffer damage not related to the infection. Mitochondria are cellular structures that generate most of the chemical energy necessary for proper cell function ”.
Of the Covid-19 patients admitted to the hospital ICU, 76 percent had acute kidney failure. Hospitalized patients with acute kidney failure had a nearly 50 percent risk of dying, compared with 8 percent in those with no kidney damage, data published in the Journal of the American Nephrology Society report.
The 17 patients in the study had an average age of 78 years and 15 of them were male. Most of these patients were hospitalized for more than five days before their death, and 53 percent of them reported having hypertension as a comorbidity factor. Other main comorbidities were diabetes and cardiovascular disease.