Is Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Associated with Renal Involvement? A Review of Century Infection

 The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is one of the most threatening pandemics in history involving multiple organs, including the kidney. This study aimed to review the association of COVID-19 with renal involvement.

International databases, including the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, were searched for articles by April 1, 2020. Keywords were COVID-19, coronavirus disease, SARS-CoV-2, kidney, renal function, acute kidney injury, and acute renal failure, or a combination of them in title/abstracts.

There were a few studies concerning COVID-19 and renal failure due to the short time elapsed from the epidemic onset. The results showed that hematuria and proteinuria were common in patients with COVID-19.

Patients with elevated creatinine are at risk of mortality two times more than patients with normal creatinine. Also, elevated BUN, proteinuria, and hematuria can increase the risk of mortality in patients with COVID-19 up to four times compared to patients with normal tests. Therefore, it is important to check creatinine, BUN, proteinuria, and hematuria in primary assessments. Generally, all routine measures for people affected with COVID-19 can be done for COVID-19 patients with acute renal failure until the current knowledge is changed. Chloroquine phosphate may improve the chance of treatment.