Introduction:
Since December 2019, a new respiratory infectious disease ‘COVID-19’ has
become a global epidemic. Kidney is one of the most frequently involved
extrapulmonary organs. The renal injury caused by SARS CoV-2 is called
COVID-19 associated nephropathy (COVAN), which is related to the poor
prognosis of patients. Renal injury usually manifests as nephritis,
recurrence or aggravation of kidney disease, transplant rejectionand
acute kidney injury (AKI). The mortality rate of COVID-19 cases with AKI
is significantly higher than those without kidney
disease[1]. According to current reports, COVID-19
associated kidney injury has multiple pathological manifestations,
including collapsed glomerulonephritis (CG), acute interstitial
nephritis (ATI), focal segmental glomerulosclerosis(FSGS) and thrombotic
microvascular disease (TMA). CG is reported to be the most
characteristic manifestation after SARS-CoV-2 infection[2].
Since the first pandemic of wild-type SARS-CoV-2in 2019, the strains
have gradually mutated into Alpha, Beta, gamma, Delta and other strains.
By 2022, COVID-19 virus has been compiled into the omicron variant.
There have been plenty of reports on kidney injury caused by the early
pandemic delta strain, while at present, the reports on the clinical and
pathological characteristics of kidney injury caused by omicron
infection are relatively lacking. Although a large number of studies on
COVID-19 associated kidney injury have been reported abroad, the
clinicopathological characteristics of COVID-19 associated kidney injury
in China are different from those in foreign countries due to strain
variation and ethnic differences. This study retrospectively included 49
COVID-19 associated kidney injury patients from the Second Xiangya
Hospital of Central South University from December 2022 to March 2023,
38 of whomperformed kidney biopsy, and analyzed their clinical and
pathological features to explore the characteristics and prognosis of
COVID-19 associated kidney injury.