Characteristics and Mortality Determinants of COVID-19 Patients Undergoing Haemodialysis.

Background/aim COVID-19 infection which started in Wuhan City, China in December 2019 turned into a pandemic in a very short time, affecting mainly the elderly and those with serious chronic illnesses. COVID-19 infection has been observed with a high mortality rate especially in patients undergoing maintenance haemodialysis. Materials and methods Forty-two patients over 18 years of age, who underwent a maintenance haemodialysis program at our unit, and being tested positive for COVID-19 by PCR from nasopharyngeal swabs and/or were observed to have disease-related signs in their CTs were included in the study. Results In this study, 23 of 42 patients receiving haemodialysis support in our clinic were included. The median age was 67 years (min 35; max 91 years) and all of them had primary hypertension and other comorbidities. Their clinical evaluation showed that dry cough (47.8%) and shortness of breath (47.8%) were the most common symptoms. Fever was less pronounced (30.4%). The median time from the onset of symptoms to hospitalization was 1 day (min 0; max ) and time from hospitalization to death was 18 days (min:1; max 22). Transfer from the inpatient ward to ICU took a median of 7 days (min 1; max 13). Among the 23 patients, three died during the follow-up and 20 were discharged with full recovery. Baseline ferritin, procalcitonin levels and CRP/albumin rates higher and neutrophil/lymphocyte levels lower in patient who died. In these patients, despite being non-significant, there were more diabetic patients and D-dimer levels were higher than 1000 ugFEU/L. Conclusion COVID-19 infection is associated with increased mortalit in chronic kidney diseases patients. Despite being non-significant, there was a trend towards increased mortality in patient with diabetes, D-dimer levels >1000 ugFEU/L and higher ferritin, prokalsitonin levels, increased CRP/albumin raio and lower neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio.