Background: Global health and life are at risk from COVID-19, particularly for individuals who have several illnesses, such as renal disease. Hemodialysis (HD) patients make up a sizable subset of kidney failure patients with a variety of etiologies, most of which are thought to involve immune system impairment.
Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics, laboratory finding, short term outcomes and to estimate the mortality rate of COVID 19 infection in chronic HD patients in Assiut Governorate.
Patients and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 400 patients in upper Egypt (Assiut Governorate) with end stage renal disease on regular HD was carried out at Quarantine Department of Assiut Feverish Hospital, two hundred of them were infected with COVID-19 diagnosed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: Regarding thetwo hundred isolated HD patients infected with COVID-19, the mean age was (61.04 ± 14.57 years) older than those without COVID-19 (49.54 ± 11.78), gender distributed was (48% males and 52.6% females) with an incidence rate of occurrence about 15.4% of total HD patient in Assiut governorate. The total mortality rate was 31% higher in males than female. About 41.8% males died while the survivals were 58.2% of total males had COVID 19 infection, while 17.8% of females died with a total survival 82.2% of females had infected with COVID 19. The most frequent symptoms were gastritis (0.000), fever (0.001) and cough (0.009) respectively. While the most significant laboratory findings were elevated s. creatinine, high WBC counts, high absolute neutrophilic counts, and low platelet counts with p < 0.001.
Conclusion: At the area of COVID-19 infection, the incidence of COVID-19 infection was relatively low among HD patients in Assiut Governorate, with good prognosis among infected patients by COVID 19. The predictor factors for mortality were elderly, male gander, presence of cardiac diseases, elevated serum creatinine, elevated serum potassium, bilateral GGO in CT scan chest and hypoxemia with need for CAPAP or intensive care admission.