Understanding COVID-19-associated acute kidney injury
Professor Vincenzo Cantaluppi researches acute kidney injury (AKI) in hospitalized patients and is director of the Nephrology and Kidney Transplant Unit at Maggiore della Carità University Hospital, Novara, Italy.
Professor Cantaluppi believes there are several unmet needs in AKI, including the need for early diagnosis, prevention of AKI-associated distant organ dysfunction and progression toward chronic kidney disease (CKD), and reducing mortality rates, especially for critically ill patients and those admitted to intensive care units.
He explains: “AKI looks like a complex syndrome rather than a simple disease, with a huge variety of phenotypes among patients admitted to randomized clinical trials with consequent poor prognosis and negative results.”
“In particular, the pathogenic mechanisms of sepsis- and COVID-19-associated AKI are far from fully explained, but they seem to be related to the presence of detrimental circulating factors that can induce and accelerate senescence, apoptosis, and damage in the kidneys.”
In his talk at WCN’22, Professor Cantaluppi will discuss the pathogenic mechanisms of AKI during SARS-CoV-2 infection and compare these with other well-known causes of AKI such as sepsis, ischemia-reperfusion injury, and drug toxicity.
He continues: “I will discuss the direct and indirect causes of AKI during COVID-19, as well as the main mechanisms involved in long COVID syndrome, including the role of AKI in this clinical scenario.”
Professor Cantaluppi’s research is ongoing; he hopes to create an AKI outpatient pathway that will help identify progression toward chronic kidney disease (CKD) and a biobank to store samples for future biomarker discovery. The project would also look at COVID-19 vs. non-COVID-19 kidney damage.
He adds: “We plan to enroll at least 200 patients with AKI stages 2-3, and 200 hospitalized patients without AKI as our control group, in a multi-center study within Italy, overseen by a working group of nephrologists and general practitioners, and aiming to reduce the rate of progression from AKI to CKD.”
Vincenzo Cantaluppi: “Pathophysiology of Covid-19-associated AKI,” Theme Symposium “Covid-19-Associated AKI,” Saturday 26 February, 19:30–21:00 hrs Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) time: https://cm.theisn.org/cmPortal/searchable/WCN2022/config/normal#!sessiondetails/0000015310_0
